


Fortitude

by MephistAgain



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fred is adorably inept at feelings, OC is a mess (understandably), Spartan out of his element, Tragic Romance, Trigger Warning - Mention of Suicide, mature themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:41:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27914683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MephistAgain/pseuds/MephistAgain
Summary: In 2536, Blue team undertakes a mission to retrieve contraband weaponry being transported aboard a civilian cruiser which goes sideways, leaving Fred stranded without contact with his teammates. What's a Spartan to do with a civilian informant who happens to be the plaything of the URF General he's just eliminated? Power has failed, temperature is plummeting, and he has nothing to offer.
Relationships: Frederic-104 (Halo)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**TRIGGER WARNING: STORY CONTAINS MENTION OF SUICIDE**

**I love Fred, and I wanted to write a Fred-centric story. That's the long and short of where this story originated. There is a female OC, this is non-canon (or outside the bounds of what is known as canon for the time frame), and THERE IS NO HAPPILY EVER AFTER. I didn't know when I began writing this that it would conclude in the precise fashion that it now has, but I knew there would never be a happy ending. This story is designed to take place in Fred's past with all due respect for (and in my own humble opinion in explanation of) who he is as a character at present - charismatic and deeply internalizing/empathetic.**

**Explicit content, adult themes, ALL THE WARNINGS.**

**Accompanying curated playlist (if you're into that sort of thing):** **https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsuNz6JE0LCTJQ4vi1_N-k19s7R2sTDo2**

* * *

Fred advanced through the ship, clearing rooms as he went. He was confident the rest of Blue team could tackle retrieving the contraband armament stashed somewhere in the bowels of the cruiser, and the mission required simultaneous completion of objectives. As well as delivering the nukes to an Insurrectionist stronghold in the Outer Colonies, the civilian vessel was reportedly transporting a high-ranking leader, one General Hector Braviston - widely touted as URF's strategic genius. Capturing or killing him was considered of greater importance than securing the weapons, but the validity of the informant's claims in the Intel dossier had been questionable. While Fred understood the need for resource gathering by any means necessary, he wasn't of a mind untrained civilians of dubious background and loyalty were the way to go. But if it led them to Braviston, he'd keep his doubts to himself.

The craft wasn't well protected, it was clear the Innies hadn't anticipated being sold out.

"Payload located, securing now. What's your status, Blue-Three?" Kelly's voice crackled over the comm.

"Still clearing the fore section."

"Copy that."

Raised voices from up ahead reached him - one male, one female. Rounding a bulkhead, Fred jerked his magnum up as bullets pelted his armor. He calmly put down the two assault rifle wielding men at the opposite end of the corridor who'd engaged him - two rounds to the chest, then one to the head - and proceeded, stepping over their prone bodies. The argument had died off. Shuffling sounds followed by a yelp, and upon stepping into the open doorway he was greeted by the sight of a half-naked Braviston holding a woman before him.

"Stay there," the General commanded from behind the safety of his human shield.

Fred assessed the situation. If Braviston were of normal male stature, the woman wouldn't have provided him with enough protection to be of any consequence - Fred was an excellent marksman at close range. But Braviston was decidedly small, and the woman a little taller than average. The fact she was clutching a blanket to herself didn't help matters. It was impossible to tell precisely where her body was in relation to Braviston's with the crumpled material draped around her, and she wasn't likely to move out of the way with the muzzle of a gun shoved beneath her chin into the underside of her jaw. Her wild eyes seemed to be pleading silently with Fred through the tangle of dark hair hanging before them.

"Put your weapon down," Braviston grated.

He could have pointed out the futility of the circumstances, but sensed a better opportunity to complete his objective was likely to present itself if Braviston felt he was in control. Splaying his fingers away from the trigger, Fred bent down with exaggeratedly slow movements. As he released his sidearm, he noted the slight lean of his quarry to follow the gesture. With practiced ease, his other hand snatched a combat knife from the sheath on his thigh as he straightened back up.

The blade was flung in one smooth motion and caught Braviston in the throat. He rocked backwards, overcentring his weight and throwing both himself and the woman to the deck. One of them let out a strangled gasp. The gun had clattered free of Braviston's grasp upon impact, his legs were kicking as he clawed at his neck.

As Fred approached with his magnum to hand again, the woman was trying to roll away from her once-captor, but while her body twisted to the side, something prevented her head from moving. She cried out as Braviston's fingers became ensnared in her hair during his death throes.

"Alpha objective complete," he informed the others over the comms as he knelt down to retrieve his knife. The handle had become entangled in the woman's long tresses as well, and Fred quickly concluded that was what was trapping her. "Stay still." He could see the tension in her shoulders and neck as he did his best to free the handle enough to pluck the blade out.

Braviston was reduced to twitching feebly now. His sightless eyes had all but rolled back in his head.

Fred finally succeeded in removing his weapon, frowning at the long locks of hair which came away with it, plastered to the blade by Braviston's blood.

The woman scrambled away the moment she was able, nearly losing the blanket in her haste.

He was just opening his mouth to request a sit-rep from his teammates when a violent shudder coursed through the ship. The door slammed shut as emergency lights flashed to life and an alarm wailed. "Blue-Two, what was that?" No sooner had he voiced the question than did a second, worse concussion quake the deck, causing him to stagger. The power failed, plunging all into darkness. "This is Blue-Three, how copy Blue team?" Nothing but silence answered. "Blue team, do you copy?" Had the nukes been inadvertently detonated?

Movement in the room caught his attention and he swung around, helmet lights engaging.

The woman threw an arm up to shield her eyes against the intense glare. His already tightened gut lurched at the realization he'd all but put her existence from his mind in the ensuing confusion.

Fred shifted his head so the lights weren't shining directly into her face, but not before he took notice of the blood coating her shoulder. Hers or Braviston's? "Are you injured?" Focus on the present predicament. That was what he needed to do. Trust John, Kelly, and Linda to reestablish contact. The door had sealed because a breach had been detected. If he opened it and the hall outside wasn't pressurized, oxygen would vent from the room and the woman would suffocate.

"I don't know," she answered, seemingly startled by her own voice. It did possess a raw edge to it. Perhaps she was in shock.

He walked over, taking in her dilated pupils and trembling limbs. As he crouched before her, she shrank into a smaller huddle, the blanket haphazardly pooling around her. "Best let me check." It did appear a steady trickle was leaking down her arm. He reached forward and she flinched away. His hand froze. "I'm not going to hurt you." It was clear someone had already, however. Up close, the red welts which would no doubt darken to bruising were visible on much of her face and arms. Her lower lip had begun to swell.

She swallowed. "Is he…?"

"Yes." Fred could only assume Braviston was responsible, and while his superiors had indicated a preference for the General to be taken alive, he couldn't feel too poorly about having instead killed the man. Only a coward used a civilian as a shield. When he reached out again, she resolutely remained still. He peeled the bloodsoaked hair away from her collarbone, lifting it enough to spot the laceration to her shoulder. Probably the result of Braviston dragging her down on top of him. "It's not too deep," he advised her. "I'm going to patch it up so it stops bleeding."

She nodded assent.

Lifting his other arm, he prompted the armor casing where the cartridges of biofoam were stored within his vambrace to release and removed one of them. She was watching warily as he used the gory blade he yet held to puncture the cylinder, then raised it quickly to direct the pressurized spray onto her wound. It wasn't the prettiest job, but the blue foam coated the injury and would act as a flexible bandage. "All done." Fred set the empty cartridge aside and wiped as much of the biofoam as possible from his gloved fingers onto his armored foot. He glanced to his knife, then speculatively at a trailing edge of the blanket. He didn't like to stow dirty weapons.

She yanked the blanket closer, seemingly following this train of thought. "Don't you dare."

"You're already wearing his blood," Fred pointed out reasonably. From the way her features pinched in distress, he gathered that wasn't the right response. He returned the blade to its sheath without further protest and straightened up. "Blue team, this is Blue-Three, do you copy?" Still nothing. He went to the door, prodding the lifeless panel beside it. The fact auxiliary power hadn't come online wasn't encouraging. He could always force the door, but this was just further evidence a catastrophic failure had occurred. The question was how long did he wait for his teammates to sort it out before taking action? Was the life of one woman supposed to outweigh mission success? He'd never been comfortable with making those sorts of calls - which was why he was happy to leave command to John.

"I'm guessing this wasn't part of the plan?"

He turned back, for the first time considering her presence on board the cruiser. Braviston had obviously been engaging or about to engage in intercourse with her, as indicated by their state of dress. He'd also attacked her and subsequently been prepared to sacrifice her to save himself. And while frightened, she didn't seem bewildered by what had transpired or what Fred was doing there. "You're the informant?" he ventured.

Another nod.

She wouldn't have known about the mission, but likely would have guessed her intel would result in one. "Why weren't there more hostiles aboard?" Braviston alone was worth guarding, having been the chief architect of several recent successful URF plots, nevermind the nuclear armament.

"I don't know."

"But you knew about the nukes."

"I overheard."

"And your connection to him?" He flicked a hand towards Braviston's corpse.

Her jaw firmed and she looked into his faceplate for the first time. "His whore - or isn't it obvious?" she spat, and Fred was under the impression again that he'd said the wrong thing.

He averted his gaze uncomfortably, his helmet lights playing across the room, throwing up shadows. On his HUD, the ambient temperature had already begun to drop. "Do you have clothes?" he asked. "It's going to get cold in here soon." He didn't mention if it took too long for the others to locate them, she would freeze to death without environmentals. Even he knew that was extraneous and inappropriate.

"I can't see." She had risen onto her feet, but remained by the wall. "On the other side of the room, I think, by the bed."

Fred crossed the quarters, searching the area. The beam of his helmet lights fell onto a heap of iridescent fabric. He picked it up, judged it to be a garment, and carried it back to her.

Snatching the clothes from him, she waited until he'd put some distance between them and given her his back to begin dressing.

He could hear rustling, a thump and resultant curse, and then quiet. His shoulder blades were itching from intentionally providing himself as a target to an as yet unknown variable. Making her dress while he watched on just struck him as… wrong. His Spartan sensibilities might be lacking, but he did have morals, and even if nudity didn't particularly concern him, it obviously did her or she wouldn't have been desperately gripping that blanket like a lifeline. Odd for someone of her occupation, his rational mind insisted, but he ignored it.

"I can't see," she repeated, breaking into his thoughts, sounding resigned.

He cleared his throat, uncertain how to rectify the situation. "Ah, hang on." Removing his helmet, he flipped it around so the lights would provide illumination for her and held it out while keeping his back turned. "Better?"

"You're blinding me."

He issued a mental sigh and angled the helmet downwards more.

The rustling started up again. "So, do you have a name?" she asked, he figured more to fill the silence than out of any real curiosity. He'd learnt most people found drawn out silences awkward. "Okay, I'm done."

"Yes." Fred pivoted, already bringing his helmet back up to don it once more. The dress's softly shimmering navy material caught his eye and he paused, taking in the scooped neckline which draped low on her torso, revealing the inside swell of both breasts and leaving her arms totally bare. She shifted and two long slits running up either side of the skirt all the way to her thighs exposed her legs.

"What is it, then?"

The question brought him back to himself and he realized with a jolt of embarrassment he'd been staring. "Fred," he supplied, and was obliged to clear his throat again since it seemed to have gone dry. He hurriedly plunked his helmet back onto his head, hoping the poor lighting had hid his heated cheeks.

She'd folded her arms, the gesture one he recognized as being self-conscious. "Fred."

He nodded confirmation, forcing himself to look anywhere but to the pronounced curve of her now compressed breasts. "That's not going to keep you very warm," he blurted.

Frowning, she glanced down at herself and then bent to take up the soiled blanket and pull it around her shoulders. "What's going to happen?"

"It's likely the nukes were detonated by accident and the ship's taken considerable damage. I can't open the door without knowing how much damage."

"We're trapped here," she surmised.

"For the time being."

"With no power."

Fred could see she'd come to the conclusion this scenario was not ideal for her survival.

She sank back down to the floor slowly.

"How's your shoulder now?"

"Does it really matter?"

He wasn't sure how best to respond to that and regarded her growing dejectedness with worry. "You haven't told me what your name is," he said, the first reasonably safe statement that came to mind.

She grimaced. "Does that matter either?"

"Only seems fair."

"Khae," she mumbled finally in answer, face pressed into her arm. "How long do I have before…?"

Fred steeled himself. "A while," he lied. At the current rate the temperature was dropping, she'd become hypothermic long before the oxygen was depleted. Especially clothed as she was.

Whether she believed him or not, she made no further mention of it.

He tried to raise the others on the comms a few more times, then gave up. Something was jamming the signal or… they weren't in range. Those were the only two explanations he would accept.

"Can you stop looming?"

"Looming?"

"You're huge," she complained, gaze flickering to him.

He stiffened. "I can't do anything about that." What did she see when she looked at him? A freak? He'd heard the term applied to Spartans in the past, by fellow soldiers and civilians alike. Mostly the hushed insults and suspicious looks rolled off his back. Mostly.

Khae rolled her eyes. "You could sit down."

"I could," he agreed, bothered and uncertain why that was. He wasn't combative by nature, but part of him wanted to remain standing, 'looming', just because. He didn't. Moving to the wall, he sat down, keeping a healthy margin between them. It was obvious she didn't want him close.

Silence stretched out like a cavern.

He could see her without turning his head and found himself studying her profile. Her hair, he recalled from before the lights had gone out, was a deep obsidian in colour. It was also extraordinarily long, the sleek ends trailing the floor as she sat, hunched forward with her legs drawn into her chest. The corner of her eyes dipped upward, and when combined with her high cheekbones, full lips, and olive complexion, lent her a distinct and memorable appearance. He forced his examination to end at her slender neck. She was of average build. Not a warrior. Not like him.

And her breath was now misting the air.

Khae seemed to notice it at the same moment he did, a shiver coursing through her which he suspected had just as much to do with fear as with the threatening chill in the air. "I need to talk, I can't-" she broke off, wide eyes latching onto him beseechingly.

She wanted him to distract her, and he knew he had to try. "Tell me about yourself." It occurred to him the reason the prompt came to him so swiftly was that he'd already been wondering, but he again ignored the realization.

"I already-"

"Not this," he interrupted, an act in and of itself out of the ordinary for him, indicating the room with his hand. "Tell me about you." He watched her take a steadying breath, pleased he'd picked up on the right response this time.

"I was born on Harvest," she began with a quiver to her voice which faded as she went on. "In Gladsheim. Two older twin sisters, one younger brother. Middle child and all that."

Whatever the 'all that' was meant to entail eluded Fred.

"My parents and my sisters didn't make it when…" She rubbed her eyes with the heel of a hand.

Maybe this wasn't the correct subject to have pursued either. He was terrible at this.

"I was ten, my brother was eight." She seemed to be struggling.

"How old are you now?" he questioned, grasping at straws for a way to turn her thoughts to something less difficult to discuss.

"Twenty-one. You?"

Idiot, why hadn't he seen that one coming? "About that."

The vague response, as predicted, caused her dark brows to climb. Another shiver wracked her body, this time most likely all the temperature's fault.

His HUD read zero degrees Celsius. "You need to get up and move around." Physical exertion would raise her core body temperature. It wasn't a solution, but it would help.

"To delay things?" she clarified bleakly.

He didn't confirm one way or the other, just stood up. "Come on." Seeing she had no intentions of following the advice, he stepped into her space. If making her uncomfortable was the only way to get her up, he would do it and make no apologies. He reached down, fingers curling around her upper arm and gently propelling her to her feet.

"It's fine for you, in there-" she said, jabbing at his chest plate, "why are you even bothering with me?" She shrugged free without waiting for him to reply and stalked past, pacing from one side of the quarters to the other.

Fred nearly groaned. "Do you want me to leave you alone?"

"I want you to take that helmet off again."

"Why?" he asked, perplexed by the unexpected demand.

Khae continued to pace, small puffs of air clouding with each exhalation. "So that the last thing I see isn't my own terrified face in your visor."

It was as good a reason as any, he decided. There were no imminent threats present - for good or ill, he didn't consider her a danger any longer. Removing his helmet, he carried it to the bed and left it there after gathering the other blanket left twisted on the mattress. His mind shied from _why_ the blanket was so dishevelled. He didn't want to deliberate too long on what Braviston had been doing with her before he'd arrived.

She stilled when he approached and allowed him to drape the second blanket around her shoulders.

With his helmet lights pointing towards the wall, the room was dim at best, but he could tell nonetheless that she was inspecting his features, much as he'd covertly done to her earlier. His expression became wary as he awaited the anticipated fear and derision.

Her forehead creased lightly, but it wasn't a reaction he knew what to make of. "What happened?" She touched her hairline by way of explanation of the question and he realized she meant his scar.

"Training exercise." He couldn't offer details, and she thankfully didn't request any. He began to relax, believing the worst to be over. She hadn't recoiled or called him anything derogatory.

"All of them?"

He stepped back swiftly and knew his voice was clipped when he answered. "No." He couldn't blame her for asking, he was intimately familiar with the number of marks marring his face. For some reason, he'd felt it as a physical blow, just the same. Why? Why did it matter what she thought?

"Fred, I'm sorry-"

"It doesn't matter."

"-I didn't mean-"

"You need to keep moving."

"I just wasn't expecting you to-"

His breath caught as he eyed her pensively, frustrated that he was affected so much by words, frustrated that she wouldn't just stop spouting them.

Her lips pressed together, as though she'd decided she'd said enough, or didn't quite know how to go on. Either one was fine by him.

He waited, but she failed to return to walking. Curiously, she extended one of her hands from beneath the blankets.

"I'm sorry. Please… I owe you my life. Whatever's left of it." Moisture had gathered in her eyes, but she blinked it away. "I'm sorry."

Fred knew of no precedent for this type of situation and stared at her, at a loss. She was emotional. In all likelihood experiencing shock and anxiety. Wounded. Chances were she had never laid eyes on a Spartan before. Her behaviour, as erratic as it seemed to him, was explicable. His reaction to it was what was troubling.

Her hand fell back to her side, and too late he understood he'd been meant to grasp it. A sort of truce. She swallowed and moved off to circuit the quarters in silence.

Now what? He had the irrational urge to hit something. That or grab her. What was wrong with him? It took him a moment to notice she'd paused next to Braviston.

For a second nothing happened. Then she spun away, covering her face - no, her mouth.

He'd seen soldiers and civilians alike puke at the sight of gore and death before. That, at least, was no mystery. Grabbing the body by the ankles, he dragged it over to the bed and rolled it beneath, out of sight. He nearly retrieved his helmet and put it back on, but her simple confession replayed in his mind. The cold nipping at his ears and nose told him the temperature continued to decrease.

When he looked over, he saw she remained static and was trembling. "You need to move." This didn't elicit a response. "You need to keep moving," he repeated with greater authority, to no avail. Exasperation mounting, he returned to the bloodstained area he'd removed Braviston from, trying to ascertain how best to proceed. "Khae."

This seemed to break her free from her reverie. Slowly, her gaze drifted up to his, her fingers lingering over her mouth and the other hand clutching the edges of the blankets together. "I'm afraid," she choked out, the tears she'd earlier avoided shedding now leaking from her exotic eyes. She must have seen, despite the tears, his immediate discomfort, because she swallowed hard and forced more steadiness into her next words. "Are you ever afraid, Fred?"

She was twenty-one. Near enough to his own age, but he had to remember her experience of violence and loss would not be on par with his. She wasn't a soldier. She certainly wasn't a Spartan. He considered his response, knowing it would hold weight. "Yes," he said. "For my teammates."

"Do you think they're alright?" She smudged the tears away, but more replaced them, creating wet trails.

"Yes." He wouldn't believe otherwise.

Behind her fingers, her lips tightened tremulously. "You look so fierce, like you're willing that to be true."

"I am," he confirmed before giving any thought to whether he should or shouldn't do so. It would be true. Was true. Had to be true. He watched as her focus slid down to his chest.

"Why 104?"

"Part of my callsign."

She reached up, tracing her finger over the numbers.

He held perfectly still as they slid over to a dent and then a gouge, examining each flaw as though for structural integrity.

"Say something," she pleaded in a rush.

Fred blanked. "Your hair - it's long." He wanted to feel it slide through his hands - his bare hands.

Her eyes darted back up in surprise. "It tangles and gets caught in everything. I hate it." She froze so abruptly, his heart skipped a beat. "Cut it off for me."

"What?"

"With your knife."

"That's not-" He was all sorts of confused. "You need to get moving again," he insisted, taking charge of the situation. Some form of order needed to be restored.

She shook her head. "How much longer will it give me?"

"I don't know." Were their positions reversed, with his own body condition and stamina, he could extend his life expectancy drastically with appropriate physical exertion. She was decidedly… less. In every sense. "But it will give you longer."

She walked.


	2. 2

She walked.

Around and around, back and forth. For a while. Sometimes while sniffling and whimpering, sometimes in abject silence.

Fred had never felt so useless. Encased in his MJOLNIR, he couldn't offer her shared body heat. He couldn't offer her anything except encouragement, and it was proving painfully obvious he wasn't very adept at that. The tip of his nose and earlobes had begun to burn by the time she stumbled and pitched forward to her knees, catching herself by throwing out her hands. Having been observing her dejected wandering from a post by the door, he went immediately to her side and bent down.

"I can't do this," she cried from behind the heavy curtain of hair which had fallen around her face. "I can't."

"You can, you're doing well."

She shuddered. "I'm tired."

"No, you're fine. Here, you need to get up." He offered his hand to help her, but instead of accepting it she crumpled onto the deck. Hesitating, he scooped an arm beneath her and propped her into a seated position. "Khae." She wasn't struggling and he didn't know whether that was a good or bad sign. He did his best to tuck her hair out of the way and gathered the blankets closer around her, frowning at her closed eyes. Some of the colour had certainly leached from her skin tone. The bruising was growing more obvious. Fred rather thought he'd been too respectful when he'd hauled Braviston's corpse beneath the bed.

"Your voice is… so rich. Keep talking to me, Fred." Her lashes were wet and spiked together and quivered, but her eyes remained shut.

"I don't know what to say," he admitted, having never before been requested to speak for someone else's listening pleasure.

"Anything."

He searched his memory for a safe and impersonal subject, coming up empty.

"You didn't want to cut my hair off." It wasn't a question, but he leapt at the offered topic just the same.

"It's… I've never seen hair that long."

"It's just hair."

"No, it's beautiful," he insisted, though didn't dare give in to the temptation to touch it more than he already had. The thick mass enveloped the blanket, so dark it put him in mind of the vast expanse of space itself. He'd never called anything beautiful before, but he was certain the adjective was appropriate.

Her eyes opened. Fine lines edged them and her mouth now, the tension in her face a visible manifestation of stress he was familiar with in others. "They like to use it to control me. Grab it, pull it, hold me down. But they always tell me it's beautiful first."

Fred's mouth had run dry at her words, said in a voice entirely devoid of life. He could imagine, unfortunately, to what she referred. Impotent frustration filled him at his complete inability to say even one thing right. Her hand clumsily moved forward and finely honed instincts kicked in, his fingers capturing her wrist. She was reaching for the knife again. He eased her hand back and drew the second blade from the magplate at the small of his back. It was clean.

She gave a small nod of approval and pulled her hair forward, holding it clutched together in her hands.

He secured the end in his grasp and ran the blade across the glossy strands. It took three swipes to fully sever the thick coil, which then hung limply from his grip.

Khae released a deep breath. She let go of her hair, which still reached past her shoulders and was longer than military personnel were generally advised to wear it.

Replacing the knife, he dropped the hand holding her detached locks to his side, but didn't release it. The supple fistful of hair seemed too precious to cast aside.

"Is it alright if I touch you, Fred?"

He was positive his expression exposed his tumultuous reaction. He was accustomed to being handled and manipulated physically for any number of reasons, but a certain understanding that what she was proposing was vastly different from that accompanied the question.

A shadow of doubt fell across her features.

"Go ahead," he rushed out before she withdrew.

"It's fine if you don't."

"I'm not used to being asked that." He was far from an expert on normal social interaction, but he didn't think it a common request made between near strangers.

"Me either." There was a clear note of bitterness to the claim.

He frowned as he realized why. "Go ahead," he repeated more earnestly this time. Not because he worried about how his failure to agree might affect her, but because he found he actually wondered what it might be like - being touched by her.

She regarded him for a few moments. He didn't think she intended to follow through anymore by the time she reached up and one frigid fingertip brushed his chin. It retreated, then slid up his jawline slowly. "You're so warm," she breathed, misting the air between them.

Of course. Why was it impossible for him to think clearly? Fred gently took her other hand and brought it up to his cheek, then held it there, encouraging her to do the same with the other. He covered both of her hands with his own protected ones, feeling the burn of the contact between her cold skin and his face sink in.

Her eyelids fluttered shut in pure bliss and she leaned inwards, enjoying the comparative warmth of his flesh against her own.

Hypothermia was taking hold of her body, he could detect it in the pale splotches on her hands and the stiffness of her movements. Knowing he could do little to prolong the inevitable, Fred lowered himself the rest of the way to sit and set his hands against her back, rubbing them up and down firmly and steadily. The friction between the blankets, her clothes, and her skin would generate a small amount of heat.

Swaying forward more, her fingers pushed back into the hair at his temples and continued around to the back of his head. When she applied pressure he allowed her to pull him down until her forehead rested against his cheek. "Fred, you're like a reactor core," she mumbled in weary delight while nuzzling her face into his.

He wasn't, but one was the power source of the suit which was keeping his body temperature at a cozy and regulated thirty-seven degrees Celsius. His thoughts were far too scattered to reveal this or to form any other coherent response, however. He didn't require his helmet to inform him his heart rate had spiked. His hands had paused in their task, but he forced them to continue, he hoped before she'd noticed the lapse. A powerful urge to bury his face in her neck was building within him. The scents of whatever she'd used to wash her hair last and the blood now dried on her shoulder mingled with other less discernible odours, a heady combination he couldn't help but take in with every inhalation. He swallowed hard.

Her lips grazed his ear and the tortured groan which escaped him startled them both.

He almost couldn't bear to meet her gaze as she drew back, afraid of what he might see there. Indecipherable shame tightened his chest. Something was surely wrong with him. He'd _never_ made a noise like that before.

The moist vapour of her breath fanned across his chin as she tilted her head up, her eyes trailing upwards from there until they locked onto his own. There seemed to be an offer in them, one he didn't know what to make of or how to answer. Her hands hadn't left the back of his neck, and one slid around now, fingers drifting up over his jaw to his lips.

Fred sat, rigidly entranced as she traced them. His head lowered almost of its own accord. This was wrong. This was not something he was supposed to do. He told himself this several times in the span of time it took for their mouths to meet. And then all logic fled. Her lips were soft and cool against his own, the lower slightly warmer and firmer owing to the inflammation. They brushed over and then pressed to his before separating, and all the while she regarded him with careful intensity. Her pupils had grown larger and he could hear a change in her respiration, feel the shallow puffs on his sensitized skin. His hands had stopped again. They dug into the blanket, pushing her closer, closing the gap once more.

Less tentative this time, she allowed her eyes to close as her lips played over his.

Fred was enthralled, there was no other word for it. His own lids drooped as she enticed him to participate, which he did furtively at first, then with growing intuition. The anxiety of engaging in such behaviour was brutishly pushed to the back of his mind by a rapidly developing _need_ in him. Her fingernails scraped over his nape and an answering shiver shot down his spine.

When her tongue gently probed his mouth, he opened it without thought. The lack of power, lack of comms, the entire ordeal faded in the face of whatever this was. Her lips slanted across his, arms fastening around his neck, and he felt he was being dragged into oblivion without the slightest desire to stop it. An all-consuming compulsion to crush her to his body took over, and it wasn't until she broke contact with a small gasp that he realized he was doing just that. He released her, shocked at his loss of awareness - of control.

"It's okay," she assured in a hurry, reading his guilty response with ease. "I'm okay." Her cold fingers carded through his hair, straying to his temples. "Is this gray?"

It would be difficult for her to see in the darkness, he reminded himself as he fought to order his turbulent thoughts. "Yes." She wasn't recoiling in fear, wasn't putting distance between them. Should he? Yes. He easily could have hurt her, squeezed her too tight against the unforgiving titanium plating of his armor.

"Fred."

He blinked. Swallowed. His brain felt sluggish, as though under the effects of some drug.

She was touching the scar bisecting his right eyebrow. She kissed him softly, and despite his apprehension, his body responded.

This was dangerous. He didn't know what he would or wouldn't do to keep touching her, having her touching him.


	3. 3

This was dangerous. He didn't know what he would or wouldn't do to keep touching her, having her touching him.

The internal speaker in his helmet crackled to life. He could hear the tinny hails from where he sat and lunged up, rushing to retrieve it. "This is Blue-Three," he answered as he shoved the helmet on.

"Provide a sitrep, Blue-Three," John's steady voice came through.

Fred felt relief flood him. "After I completed alpha objective power failed, I'm in the target's personal quarters. Did the nukes blow?"

"Affirmative, while the ship was entering the slipstream."

Not good. "What are you telling me?"

"The detonation caused the rupture to close prematurely. The fore section - where you are - passed through. We had to return to the ship in order to pursue."

The owl they'd used to mount the mission wasn't slipspace capable, which explained the delay.

"We're coming over to exfil you now," John advised. "Be ready on my say-so."

"I have the informant here with me, she's hypothermic or near enough to it. I can't open the door and risk venting the atmosphere."

Momentary silence. "Copy that, Kelly will dispatch with reserve gear. Standby."

"Standing by." Fred turned back, frowning at the trembling figure huddled inside the blankets. He returned to her side and tugged them up over her head to retain as much of her body heat as possible. "My team is on their way." The temperature readout on his HUD was now negative twenty-three Celsius. He chafed her quivering shoulders briskly.

"How soon?" Khae asked through chattering teeth.

"Soon." John wouldn't delay, knowing there was a civilian in dire straits. He cleared his throat as he tried to figure out how to broach the subject he knew he had to. "About… just now."

She ducked her head. "I won't tell."

Good. That was… good. Why didn't it feel that way? He did his best to maintain her core temperature from dipping further while they waited, ensuring the blankets stayed wrapped tightly around her shuddering frame.

A bang on the door sounded Kelly's arrival.

"That's our ticket out of here." Fred passed his gaze around the room before making the determination she wasn't likely strong enough to resist being sucked out the moment the door opened. He gathered her into his arms and stood. "You're going to need to hold your breath for a minute when I say." Carrying her to the door, he put his back to the wall beside it. "Ready?"

She nodded faintly.

"Deep breath." He used his foot to kick the barrier, giving his teammate the okay to enter, and then braced his legs, holding onto her as tightly as he dared.

The door groaned a protest as it was wrenched open. Kelly appeared through the gap, turned her helmet towards them, and swiftly forced the door shut once more. "Injuries?"

"Minor." He bent down, sensing Khae wouldn't be able to stand, and gently deposited her. "She needs to be warmed up." And air. The oxygen levels inside the room were now reading precariously low.

Kelly knelt down, removing a storage capsule from where it had been stowed on her back. "Braviston?" she questioned while twisting it open and pulling out the thin skinsuit and breathing apparatus within. It would only offer minimal protection from the vacuum of space and was designed to be donned in emergency situations.

Fred jerked a thumb towards the bed. There was no value in the General's corpse, so no purpose to retrieving it. "You need to put this on, Khae."

"I can't feel my fingers." She wasn't looking at him, but at a point on the deck, and was fighting to breathe in deep enough lungfuls of the depleted air.

He glanced to his teammate urgently.

"I can give you a hand with that," Kelly offered.

He stood and turned away again as she proceeded to help Khae into the suit.

"Blue-Two here, we're all set," he heard her report back to John and presumably Linda.

"Good copy, we're standing by to receive you."

"Are you bringing her out or should I?" Kelly asked, and Fred took that as permission to look.

Khae knelt on the floor, arms clutching herself. Even through the tinted visor of the helmet she wore, her face appeared drawn and weary. The blankets and her dress lay puddled beside her. He supposed it wasn't attire which could be easily worn inside the suit.

"I've got her." He lifted her back up, a little taken aback by how slender and frail she felt without the blankets bundled around her. "You're doing well," he repeated an earlier assurance for some reason. He nodded to Kelly, who once again pried the door open. This time he allowed the pull of the room venting its remaining atmosphere to assist him out into the corridor. The two bodies which had lain without were gone, likely sucked out when the ship had been shorn in two. They traversed the gravityless wreckage to the point of entry Kelly had utilized and Fred spotted the owl holding position outside. "Nearly there."

Kelly leapt first, arrowing herself towards the insertion craft and latching onto the lowering loading door. Linda helped her inside and they both turned back.

Fred repositioned his burden and jumped, following the same trajectory. He could feel Khae's limbs quaking through the skinsuit as Kelly's hand closed around his arm to draw them into the owl and Linda hit the panel to seal up the ship so that it could be repressurized and atmosphere could be reestablished. Maneuvering them through the cabin, he anchored a foot beneath one of the seats and set her into it, securing the harness straps to hold her there.

"All accounted for," he heard Linda report to John, who would be piloting the craft.

"Copy that."

* * *

Fred waited for the diagnosis which would surely have been revealed by his most recent round of bloodwork and neuroscans. The critical eye of the doctor responsible for monitoring Blue team during their tour aboard the _Point of No Return_ travelled over his tablet, over Fred's results - results that were inevitably flawed by whatever had been affecting him these past two weeks.

"You're free to go, 104," the man announced, to Fred's astonishment.

"Sir?"

"All is as it should be, you're free to return to your duties." The doctor was already turning away, tucking his tablet into the pocket of his white jacket.

How could that be? How could everything be normal when he was anything but normal?

Marshalling himself, Fred took the dismissal for what it was and left the small office. His thoughts felt fragmented and scattered and uncertainty plagued his gut. He'd been convinced _something_ would be discovered by the tests - a hormonal imbalance, a disrupted neural-pathway, _something_. Something had to account for his distracted and inefficient cognitive functions, the cold sweats he broke out into seemingly at random, his loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping. The likelihood of his body rejecting an implant ten years on was slim, but had also crossed his mind as an explanation. That, a virus he'd contracted on the last mission, and a dozen other things - all ruled out.

He had almost talked himself into returning and relating his symptoms to the doctor when the doors of the lift he was waiting on slid open. Perhaps more extensive diagnostics were required? Perhaps… his train of thought slammed into a brick wall as the familiar and tantalizing scent which haunted his dreams reached him. The overwhelming need to inhale deeply supplanted all else. His gaze, which had locked onto the panel while he'd waited, shot into the empty elevator.

Empty save for one.

"Fred," she spoke up after a moment of startled silence. The bruises were fading, ugly green and yellow splotches dispersing along her temple and jaw. Her lip was no longer swollen, though a few strands of hair clung to the corner of her mouth after how sharply her head had snapped in his direction. She hadn't been expecting to see him.

He hadn't expected to see her either. His fingers twitched by his side with the urge to brush those strands free, to trace the curve of her lips, and he tightened them into a controlled fist as he ruthlessly shoved the temptation away.

This. This was what was wrong with him. This slight woman staring back at him with increasing wariness.

Sensing no movement, the doors began to close to continue on to whatever level she had previously selected. Fred halted them, his hand launching out to bar their path with singular intent - intent he hadn't even been aware of.

Khae started back against the interior in surprise. Swallowed. Was she afraid of him?

Should she be?

"You're recovering?" He drew the inane question from thin air as he stepped into the lift. What was he doing? Why hadn't he let the doors shut? Waited for a different elevator?

"Yeah." She eased away from the wall, releasing a small breath which ruffled the hair clinging to her mouth, then must have felt it and tucked it behind her ear with the rest. "Are you…?" She glanced to the controls.

Fred tore his eyes away and hit a level at random - one far from that of the highlighted level she was apparently going to. The contradictory nature of impulsively joining her in the lift and then choosing a level far from hers was not lost on him.

The doors sealed.

"It's going to be a few more weeks before I can get off this thing."

He looked over.

"The ship, not the… lift," she clarified when he said nothing, lips tugging up weakly.

Too late he recognized the terrible joke had been her attempt at relieving some of the tension.

Her focus shifted to the floor, brows furrowed. "I haven't said anything to anyone, if that's why you're here."

He knew immediately to what she referred and could feel his pulse pounding a frantic rhythm in response. He wanted to kiss her. Again - he wanted to kiss her again. They were alone. He'd never _stopped_ wanting to kiss her, not since that first moment their lips had touched.

"Can you say something? Anything?"

"That's not why I'm here." _I don't know why I'm here. I shouldn't be here._

Gaze sliding over towards him, she waited. Curious. Guarded. Thick lashes shielding her soft gray eyes. She'd been provided with standard issue PT wear; charcoal t-shirt, black joggers, and running shoes. Her hair hung unevenly, the blunt cuts his combat knife had created still very much evident.

The elevator slowed as it reached the floor indicated on the panel.

Fred's heart was thundering. The door began to open, and before she could move more than a step towards it, he turned, positioning himself in her way. Noted the indrawn breath as she stopped short. The widening of her eyes.

He had no right to prevent her from leaving the lift. _I'm out of line. Something is wrong with me._

She was leaning back, grasping for the control panel blindly - her fingers found the button to close the doors. A mistake. Definitely a mistake.

This close, he could smell the same soap pods he and everyone else aboard used, the tang of something citrus wafting on her breath, and another more subtle note, the scent which tied into his dreams - elusive, sweet, and indistinguishable. Her head tipped, her pupils dilated as she sought his gaze.

"I know you want me, Fred," she insisted in a low voice which did strange things to his insides.

It took every ounce of concentration he could muster, but try as he might, he could detect no condemnation. Not in her tone, not in her expression. Her acceptance only made him all the more conflicted over the awful revelation. She understood. She understood what was wrong with him, and she didn't view it as a shortcoming. A defect. A liability.

It was those things - this desire, this inability to focus, the constant awareness in the back of his mind, the need. The unrelenting need.

 _I'm broken. I'm not supposed to be this way._ Why couldn't he say the words? Tell her? Make her understand?

"Kiss me." It was a plea. It might as well have been an order.

Fred's hand dove into her hair, cradling the back of her head as he complied only too eagerly, his mouth descending onto hers without grace or hesitation. Supple lips parted, welcoming the unrefined assault, her tongue skimming his own in a manner which made his thoughts trip over one another.

Her fingers followed the contours of his chest, the indirect warmth of their contact through his fatigues fueling an intense urge for more - more pressure, more contact, more of all the things his mind didn't understand but his body was nonetheless demanding. Her back connected with the panel and he belatedly realized it was because he was pushing into her, trapping her much smaller frame between his and the side of the elevator. He tried to ease back, to recall how easily he could hurt her, but her hands slipped around his torso to hold him in place - then ran down the small of his back to his hips, hauling him in tighter against her soft curves. The small, feminine sound she produced coupled with the friction of their bodies pressed tight nearly drove him wild, banishing any convictions not directly connected to nerve endings.

He was throbbing. He wanted - _needed_ \- her, this, all of it. His blood rushed through his veins with the urgency of it. Anticipation built within him, faster than on the cusp of any mission he'd before been assigned. His muscles tensed with primitive knowledge as he felt her fingers slip between them and trace the outline of his painfully hard member - bliss and agony all at once, all from a simple touch. He shuddered and ground into her, exhaling harshly as her teeth closed on his lower lip.

This was madness. He was not in control of himself. He couldn't even string rational thoughts together.

"Fred," she purred. "Come to my room."


	4. 4

**I made the unimaginable mistake of forgetting in the previous chapters that, without power, there would also be no gravity. Don't ask. I had a picture in my mind and by the time I'd written most of it and realized my error, it was too late and I couldn't be bothered to somehow rectify it. This fic is my guilty** **pleasure and I make no excuses for shortsighted silliness. If you're not here for some Fred smut, you're probably in the wrong place.**

**That said, enjoy!**

* * *

" _Fred," she had purred. "Come to my room."_

He drove his fingers into his eye sockets, willing the image, the memory, the sensations to _stop_. Sweat rolled down his temple and his shirt clung to his skin. He looked up at the barbell, flexed his cramping hands, released a frustrated breath and sat up. The gymnasium was deserted at this time of the night cycle, so no one was there to ponder the fucked up Spartan relentlessly throwing weights around.

It'd been three days.

Kelly had attempted to corner him, to ascertain what was going on, and he'd caught more than one assessing look from Linda during their last training sim. It was only a matter of time before he had to explain himself, his withdrawn behaviour, his subpar target scores. If John didn't broach the subject, one of their superiors would.

He was losing it. He couldn't go on like this.

Pushing up from the bench, Fred forced himself to shower and return to his quarters. The cold water sluicing over his body until his skin went numb helped - a little. He laid on his bunk and closed his eyes.

" _Fred, come to my room."_

It'd been three days.

He swung his legs back over the side, sat up. Dug into the bunched muscles at the back of his neck as he hung his head.

He was going to be pulled from Blue team if he couldn't get it together.

It'd been three days.

Fred got up. He walked to the door, stared across the hall when it slid back to reveal John's cabin. His throat clogged at the mere suggestion of confessing to his teammate, his brother. John would not understand. Fresh perspiration broke out at the prospect of stumbling over an explanation, of John's clear blue eyes impassively staring him down as he struggled to reveal how messed up he was.

He turned and slunk down the dimly lit corridor, not even bothering to return for his boots lest he change his mind for the hundredth time that hour. Few crew who were not at their stations or tending to their duties were roaming the ship this late. He made us of the most circumspect route possible, and still arrived outside Khae's quarters in less than five minutes.

She would be asleep. Could he really wake her up? Was he that desperate? That shameless?

It would stop if he just got it out if his system, it would sort itself out and he would be able to think clearly again. Hormones. It was an overabundance of hormones. An overabundance which hadn't existed until _her_ \- until _she_ had stirred these desires, had made him want. Want her.

His hand connected with the door more sharply than he had intended for it to. He frowned immediately. Stepped back.

This was a mistake. He felt sick with the knowing of it.

Then the door opened and she stood in the glow of the night cycle lights, t-shirt grazing her bare thighs and hair tousled. She'd dragged a blanket from her bunk and wore it around her shoulders, just as she had on the cruiser, but it gapped open at the front and trailed the floor behind her. Her lips curved inadvertently - he could tell, because it took only a moment for her expression to change from sleepy pleasure to something else. Something uneasy.

"I didn't think…"

That he would come. The conclusion wasn't difficult to formulate.

His gut clenched. "I shouldn't have woken you." _I'm not alright. I need help._

"No, I asked you to come," she assured, stepping aside, inviting him in. Into her room. Into the dark.

Fred swallowed another noble protest before he choked on it. He walked in and the door closed at his back.

"I really can't see. Do you mind?" The question was proceeded by the soft illumination of the light mounted on the desk. It highlighted her features momentarily as she turned back from switching it on, the small tilt at the corners of her eyes, dark arched brows, and angular jaw.

Fred blinked in order for his augmented vision to adjust more rapidly. It wasn't bright, but the change from the corridor, to the dark room, to now had been quick.

"Why tonight?" she asked into the awkward silence which followed, playing with the edge of the blanket.

He could feel his face burning. "I can go." This had been the wrong decision. The absolute wrong decision.

"Instead of answer me?" She sounded… upset? Perplexed?

"I don't know the answer," he admitted thickly after a moment. "I can't… think straight. I can't focus." Shockingly, she didn't appear disdainful or offended. Was she amused?

"And it took you three days to figure that out? Or to break down?" She must have sensed humour was not a welcome response from the stiffening of his posture. "Fred, I'm sorry. I've never… done this before. Because I wanted to."

She seemed to be watching him very carefully for his reaction, he noted. Did she expect him to doubt her? He understood prostitution was a profession engaged in most commonly by the destitute and displaced, and not a particularly respected or safe one. He didn't know her situation, but he saw no reason not to take her at her word. "Understood."

The ghost of a frown seemed to touch her face before being replaced by something else. "You don't even realize how handsome you are, do you?"

"I'm scarred," he stated, the denial out before he'd given consideration to it. In the low lighting, she probably couldn't see the pronounced white tissue well.

"Everyone is. Trust me." The words weren't said resentfully. Just in acceptance. She exhaled, and he heard in the shaky quality the same nerves which coursed through him. "Sit down," she directed him with a gesture towards her disheveled bunk.

Fred complied, lowering himself onto the edge. The whole room smelled of her.

She approached, still holding the blanket with one hand. The other lifted his chin until their gazes met. Her fingers slid up his jaw, across the bisected eyebrow and down the length of his nose to his lips. "You have gentle eyes, Fred."

He didn't know how to reply to such an observation. "You told me I was fierce," he recalled, lips moving against her wandering fingertips. The two were far from synonymous.

"I said you sounded fierce. You did." The blanket slipped from her shoulders, puddling at her feet as her other hand joined the first, tracing his features. "But your eyes - they were soft. Even though I could tell you didn't understand… you couldn't relate. To the fear. You're not afraid of dying."

It wasn't a question. He allowed her to continue her exploration even if the experience was a foreign one to him. Being touched this way, being caressed was not something he was accustomed to. He envisioned the areas her hands passed over, trying to figure out what she saw of interest in his many healed lacerations and abrasions. She'd stepped between his open knees, her bare legs brushing against his fatigue-clad ones. He grasped the mattress to keep himself from discovering what her skin felt like.

"Should I stop?" Her eyes had pinched in uncertainty.

Swallowing took effort. "No."

She hesitated. "You look uncomfortable."

"I'm… not sure what to do," he admitted, though he was under no illusions that that wasn't clear to her. He was beyond out of his depth despite a basic understanding of the hows of physical intimacy. This didn't even seem like that. This was strange and alien.

Her brows drifted upwards. "At all?"

"I know what to do," he clarified in consternation. "I don't know what this is."

"Do you not want me to touch you?" There was a hollow aspect to her voice which hadn't been there a moment before, and which he had no idea what to make of. Her hands had dropped to her sides.

Somehow, he'd said the wrong thing. He just didn't know what it had been. "People don't touch me. Like that. The way you do." Explaining an aversion to human contact felt absurd. It wasn't even aversion as much as… he wasn't sure how he was meant to react. Was he supposed to reciprocate?

"But I can touch you here." His reflexes were delayed, but he was still able to capture her wrist before her fingers could do more than brush his crotch. "I don't understand how this is supposed to work, Fred." Something ugly flashed behind her eyes, there and gone too quick for him to comprehend what he'd seen. "Should I just bend over and let you get it over with? Is that why you're here?"

 _Was it?_ He knew his face was frozen in disbelief. In shame. In pain. He stood up, propelling her back to give him the space required to do so.

She didn't fight to free her arm, perhaps sensing how pointless it would be. Probably because she'd tried and failed before. With other men.

Fred felt ill. "I'm not- I thought you-"

"Wanted this? Wanted you?" she finished for him. "I did. I thought I did."

She'd changed her mind. He had done something to make her change her mind. Reminded her of the wrong people. The wrong experiences. He released her as suddenly as he'd grabbed her. "I don't know what to do," he repeated, quashing his frustration, or attempting to. "I don't know what I'm doing." It was cowardly, but his eyes sought the safety of the floor. He couldn't stand another glimpse of whatever it was that had passed across her face. He retrieved the blanket and offered it back to her, remembering the comfort she'd derived from it before, all the while avoiding her gaze.

She took it. Regarded him quietly as she clutched it to her chest. "I don't want to be used. I'm… I don't want it to be like that."

His heart was thudding against his ribs hard, so loud he was positive she must hear it. It was almost all he could hear. He should leave. She'd expressed reservations - more than that, even. He forced himself to shift towards the door, giving her as much space as possible.

"Is that why you came? To use me?"

The question seemed to pin him in place, half turned to the door. It held no judgement, and yet it twisted his insides into knots. "I don't know," he heard himself answer. He just wanted this to be over, this unwavering hunger for her. He wanted it to stop. He waited to be dismissed. For her hatred. Disgust. He deserved it. This time, he deserved it.

"Will you do what I tell you to?"

Fred looked over. She hadn't moved, the blanket still crumpled in one fist. He couldn't read her expression, there was no clear emotion written in it, but rather a jumble the untangling of which exceeded his paltry social IQ. "Yes." He was confident he could follow direction.

Her eyes narrowed. "Everything?"

His throat was too dry to answer. He tried clearing it. Unease settled. He nodded instead.

She exhaled in a controlled manner. "Take your clothes off."

He undressed. Folded the items neatly and set them on the desk. Waited. She'd been tracking his movements and he noticed the precise moment she saw the scars from the carbide ceramic ossification operations. They riddled his body, there was no hiding them. He had warned her he was scarred.

Her chin rose slightly. "Close your eyes."

The unease spread. He shut his eyes. He could hear her discard the blanket, it landed to his left, on the bunk most likely. She was circling him. His muscles tensed as she passed behind. Her breathing was soft, shallow. He took measured lungfuls of the air laced with her scent. Twitched when she touched the scar tissue outlining his shoulder blades. Her hair skimmed his arm as she stepped around his right side. Fingers closed around him without warning and he almost jerked backwards, his eyes flying open as he resisted the deep seated fight or flight response.

She stared up at him, frightened but defiant. "Don't move." Her hand squeezed in warning and his jaw tightened against the need to disengage from the vulnerable position, against every instinct he possessed to seize and twist her slender wrist until she released him.

He swallowed. Remained still, alert for any indication she intended to do him harm.

Her other hand flattened over his abdominals and slid upwards. At the same time, her grip relaxed somewhat and carefully glided up his length, then back down. She repeated the motion as her fingers climbed over a pectoral and curled around his shoulder.

A quiver raced down his spine and he dragged in too-deep inhalations, his gaze riveted on the determined set of her features. A vague awareness at the back of his mind insisted this wasn't right - this wasn't how it should be. When she pushed, he backed up, convincing his legs they could in fact bear his weight and move at the same time despite her maddening ministrations. His calf struck the bunk.

"Sit," she commanded, and he did, and she followed the movement, straddling him.

Fred's hands encircled her warm, smooth thighs as they cradled him. His lungs refused to expand while she tugged the t-shirt over her head, breasts brushing against his chest as she shucked it. Shadows of remnant bruising discoloured the otherwise unflawed perfection of her skin and he cupped one supple breast, driven by the primal need to possess the slight female kneeling over him, to bury himself inside her soft body over and over until he was spent, until the need was slaked.

She reached down, grasping him again, and widened her legs. It was a kind of torture he'd never before experienced as she eased onto him, so slowly, her burning heat enveloping him by increments. Even as he caught ahold of her hips and greedily forced them down, penetrating her fully with mindless lust, some part of his conscience knew it was wrong. The part connected to his swollen member just didn't care anymore.

A hiss of pain left her at the same moment her fingernails punctured his shoulder. She sank them in deep. "Stop." Shifted, but he held her to him obstinately. "Fred, you have to let me. You have to." The desperate edge to the words loosened his grip. The way she was looking at him, anxious and struggling to maintain the facade of confidence, filled him with the guilt required to let go entirely.

Panic that she would reject him, make him leave, flooded through him, and shame on its heels. Overpowering her would be a small matter, he could take what he wanted. What he needed. It was close. He could feel it. So close. Fire burned in his veins. He fisted his shaking hands in the sheets, willing control over himself. "I won't hurt you," he managed to get out even though his throat felt tight enough to strangle the lie before it could pass his lips. He had already hurt her, and he couldn't be positive he wouldn't do it again. He felt half animal, guided by primitive urges.

She must have seen something in his eyes which reassured her. Her nails plucked free of his flesh and scraped through the short hair at his nape. Tentatively, she lowered her head, kissing him. First with fleeting brushes of her lips, then with more pressure.

Fred kept his mouth gentle, his response measured. Their tongues swept together and he held his breath as her groin rocked ever so slightly into his.

"Touch me," she murmured against his lips, inadvertently creating another crack in his brittle hold over himself.

He allowed his palm to graze her leg, from her knee all the way up to the curve of her hip, over the delicate rib cage he could so easily crush to the swell of her breast. His thumb traced a circle around the puckered nipple and she pressed into him, arching her back with a small expulsion of air. The minute dip in the angle of her hips, the small slide of her velvet muscles over his shaft almost convinced him to submit to the compulsion to shove her down on the bunk and sate himself. He trembled with the effort of preventing a total lapse in judgement, in rational thought. "Please." He didn't even know what he was asking for. Begging for. Permission to fuck her until he no longer felt like he was clinging to sanity by a thread? Release?

Whatever it was, she seemed to understand. Rolled her hips and lifted herself up, then sank back down. Again. And again. Her thighs flexed against his sides. Their increasingly irregular breaths mingled. His fingers found their way to her firm ass and dug in. She could have demanded he conquer the whole galaxy and lay it at her feet in that moment, and he would have blindly and wholeheartedly promised it. That and more for the ache of her slick heat gliding over his straining erection. He was reduced to no more than a bundle of nerves transmitting unimaginable sensations to his brain and it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing but the soft whimpers, the intoxicating musk, the clench of her spasming core. He seized her to him as the throbbing pressure which had been building reached its peak and violent pulses of pleasure rolled through him, straining his very bones with their intensity. A detached and surprisingly coherent part of his mind felt her squirming, heard the breathy moans trail off and her limbs go limp. The rest of him was a mass of shivering, gasping uselessness. And so remained for several minutes.

"Fred," she said into his ear, somehow stirring the fine hairs at the back of his neck. She was stroking his face.

He opened his eyes, having at some point he wasn't aware of dropped his head to her shoulder. Small tremors still coursed through him like electric current, tightening his tendons and muscles involuntarily.

Her warm mouth pressed to the juncture of his neck and shoulder. "You're squeezing my ass. Very hard," she mumbled.

He uncurled his cramping fingers and she wriggled, huffing a small laugh. He didn't mind, he decided, thoughts muzzy as he smoothed his hands appreciatively over her rear.


	5. 5

Her warm mouth pressed to the juncture of his neck and shoulder. "You're squeezing my ass. Very hard," she mumbled.

He uncurled his cramping fingers and she wriggled, huffing a small laugh. He didn't mind, he decided, thoughts muzzy as he smoothed his hands appreciatively over her rear.

She sat there, spread across his lap, holding him inside as her fingernails tracked up and down his sides, bumping over his ribs while he drew in steadying breaths. "Thank you."

Fred mustered the wherewithal to raise his head, puzzled by the unexpected gratitude.

"For not… for this," she finished, capturing him in her exotic gaze. Her kiss-swollen lips parted, as though to say more, then pressed back together. She blinked and her long lashes intertwined with some of the hair which hung over her cheek. It felt cool and soft when he pushed it back and he allowed himself the luxury of plunging his hand into the sleek dark strands, letting them trail over and through his fingers. She was watching him. "You keep looking at me like that."

His hand stilled. "Like what?"

"Like I'm… more." When he merely continued to regard her without comprehension, she frowned. "Oh, Fred. Has no one really ever loved you before?"

Disentangling his fingers, he turned his head away. He may not understand more complex human emotions, but pity he recognized. It'd been in the eyes and on the faces of several of the med staff who'd treated him and the other Spartans during the course of their augmentation procedures. He hadn't realized what it had meant then, but he'd learned. Pity was worse than disgust. He could ignore disgust because he didn't require anyone's approval to do his duty, and do it well. Just a weapon in his hand and an objective to complete. Pity was a reaction he didn't know what to do with. It stirred something inside him he couldn't put a name to. Was that why she'd been receptive to this? Pity?

She reached for his face, but he pushed her off onto the bunk. He stood up and took his clothes from the desk, dressing with his back to her. He could hear blankets rustling.

"Can't you talk to me?" Her hand touched his back as he shrugged the t-shirt past his broad shoulders.

"No." Her arms came around his torso and he could feel her hot skin against his own, her breasts, her cheek. Her hair tickled as it feathered over him.

"You shouldn't have come, Fred," she whispered.

Guilt, shame, pain, anger - he wasn't sure which exactly was responsible for the tightness spreading through his chest. He stepped away from her abruptly, breaking her hold, and yanked the hem of the shirt the rest of the way down. She was right about that. He shouldn't have come. He felt no better - he couldn't be bothered to sort through precisely what he felt, only that it was worse, much worse.

He left without looking back.

* * *

John's eyes were boring into the back of his head. Fred could feel them. He walked without glancing back, studiously refusing to give his teammate an opening to question him on his less than optimal score on the simulated target trials they'd just concluded. Linda and Kelly weren't accompanying them back to their quarters, which was how he knew they'd elected John would be the one to broach the subject of his declining performance. He nearly changed routes and went to the gymnasium instead, but he knew he couldn't avoid the coming confrontation.

But he did stop short when he rounded a corner and spotted Khae lingering ahead. She was leaning against the wall outside his quarters, head bowed as she stared at a point on the floor, her fingers twisting the edge of her t-shirt.

John stepped around him and Fred detected his puzzlement at the uncharacteristic response. He couldn't bring himself to move, however. She was waiting. For him. That knowledge alone hardened him instantly, even if it'd been eight days since he'd walked out of her room, and each one of them he'd spent hating himself. He watched with apprehension as John continued on in his even and purposeful stride until he reached his door, beside which she was leaning.

"Are you lost?" he heard John ask her. Rationally. Because he didn't know. He'd piloted the owl back to the _Point of No Return_ and had never clapped eyes on Khae, the medics had already collected her by the time he'd exited the cockpit. He didn't know who she was. He didn't know she was single handedly responsible for Fred's deterioration.

She looked up, and in doing so, caught sight of him rooted to a spot further down the corridor. "No," she answered simply.

Fred could tell John didn't know what to think of this. His head turned towards Fred, his gaze assessing. But he entered his quarters without either addressing his teammate or engaging her further.

Unease crept along Fred's spine. He remained where he was as she straightened away from the wall and took a step, positioning herself directly before his door. He wouldn't know how to explain her presence if anyone came alone; Linda or Kelly, or if John came back out of his own quarters. His heart pounded. He finally made himself walk towards her, holding his hand up to the door panel to unlock it. Aroused or not, he was furious. At her, at himself, at the situation.

She slipped inside without a word. Stood in the centre of the room and spun in a slow circle, gray eyes wandering over the stark contents, the same as her own cabin with the exception of the bunk being somewhat oversized to accommodate his larger stature.

He followed her in and the door shut. "What are you doing here?" He knew his voice was clipped. Every muscle in his body had tautened and he didn't move from just inside the door.

"I don't know," she threw him off completely by responding with a shrug. "You don't want to see me."

"No," he confirmed, even if he couldn't tear his gaze from her.

"But you want to fuck me."

She was waiting for him to deny it, he could tell. He clenched his jaw, but said nothing. When she moved closer, he was ready, and grasped her arm the moment it lifted towards him.

"You can, you know," she said, undeterred by being restrained. "I want you to."

Fred almost couldn't swallow around the dryness in his throat. He couldn't understand what was happening, why she was offering herself in such a manner. Was it a ploy? What was her motive? What was to be gained?

With her free hand, she began to peel the t-shirt up, revealing her abdomen and the curve of her hip, then the underside of her breasts.

He should stop her. Stop this. He didn't understand it and he didn't trust it. His grip tightened on her wrist, drawing a small noise of discomfort, but she tugged the shirt over her head anyway. It mussed her hair and he had to stop himself from smoothing the stray strands back into place. The shirt dangled from her elbow, then slid down to where he held her, warm from her flesh still as it draped over his fist. Her breasts rose and fell with the quickness of her breaths. She turned towards the desk beside them, twisting her own arm behind her back in order to do so. He loosened his fingers automatically so as not to wrench her shoulder and sucked in a slow lungful of air as she slid the black joggers off her waist. They dropped to her ankles. He could feel his fury and desire clashing, and he knew which would consume the other. A groan of equal parts desperation and rage left him as she laid her hand flat on the desk and bent over the surface, presenting herself willingly. He tore open the closure on his fatigues, a slave to the beast inside who'd been craving her every moment of every hour these last eight days. Without thought for whether he would hurt her, without thought for whether one of his teammates might come seeking him, without thought period, he kneed her thighs apart and drove into her. Her sharp inhalation meant nothing. She'd done this - made him into this. He pulled back and thrust into her again, fully seating himself, then gripped the edge of the desk with one hand and wrapped his arm around her abdomen, bracing her against his punishing rhythm. Her slight frame jolted beneath him each time he shoved forward, and he could feel her thighs bringing up against the edge of the desk top just as he brought up against her flesh. She made no noise, a fact he might have been grateful for if he'd had the faculties to consider John was just across the hall, but which instead illogically incensed him further. She'd said she wanted this. Wanted him. The menace in his own voice when he spoke - his voice itself- was alien to him. "Say it again," he bit out.

Her words were stilted and jerky as she clutched at the surface of the desk. "I want you. I want you, Fred." Her hand found his, splayed across her ribs, forcing her body to absorb the shock of his strokes, and her fingers sank into the gaps between his own, clinging to him like some kind of lifeline. Like she had on the cruiser when she'd been slowly freezing to death, frightened and seeking comfort.

Incoherent thoughts piled together in a snarled mess he had neither hope nor desire to sort out. He could feel himself stiffening, the torrid pleasure tensing his entire being with anticipation, and he plunged into her one last time and held her pinned to the desk as it broke free, tumbling through his honed muscles, making them flex and contract uncontrollably in a rush of raw ecstasy.

She laid still beneath him, her cheek pressed to the gleaming metal surface, a wet track across the one he could see through the haze of his climax. Pleasure evaporated in the moment his mind caught up with his optics. She was crying.

He lunged up, dragging her up as well as a dizzying spell of nausea washed over him. "I hurt you." He was stunned. In the heat of his anger and lust, he'd savaged her - and hadn't cared he was doing it.

"No," she whimpered as he turned her around, effectively shredding his conscience. "No, I hurt you. I didn't mean to." Her eyes were glittering pools.

Fred shook his head, unable to work out what she might mean by such an assertion and uncertain whether to let her go or continue grasping her close, as though he could somehow repair this by refusing to release her.

"Fred, you scare me. You scare me with how easily I can say the wrong thing and hurt you. Why do you care what I say? What I think?" Her chest shuddered as she drew in a short breath. "I'm just a whore. I'm nothing. Nothing."

He hauled her in firmly as she sobbed in earnest, her tears leaving dark splotches on his jacket. Anxiety over his teammates overhearing the muffled sounds was oddly overshadowed by his instinct to soothe her, something he hadn't done since they'd all been children torn from their families and thrust into a cold and calculated program. He squeezed her gently and ran his hands up and down her bare back. When the worst of her trembling seemed over, he guided her over to his bunk and heaped the blankets around her, all the while mulling over what she had said. He sat down after straightening his clothes. "I'm just a soldier." There were severe limitations on what he could reveal. "Before you, I didn't… feel this way. I don't know how to properly handle it." As much as he wanted to look anywhere but at her, he forced himself to meet her tearful gaze. "I don't know why it matters. What you think. What you say. You don't look at me the same as most everyone else." Was that it? Was he really so starved for untainted attention? He'd never been bothered by any lack in that regard before. "I know I hurt you. Tell me what I can do." There'd been no blood, at the very least. He was once again filled with self loathing.

She dragged the backs of her hands across her eyes. "Let me love you. Just until I leave. I know I can. I just want to feel something that isn't… ugly and cold. I won't cause you any trouble with your team or anyone else," she implored in a nervous rush.

He frowned. "I don't understand." He'd been expecting a request he could fulfill to ease his guilt, pain meds or… not this. This was new and alarming and he was instantly wary of it.

"I know." She stared into his face and swallowed. "Let me show you, Fred."


	6. 6

He didn't sleep. Not that night cycle and not the next. He'd seen her walk through the mess hall as he had sat at a table with Linda, Kelly, and John, her movements careful and slow, and his food had turned to ash in his mouth. He'd pushed the tray away and sat in silence as his teammates discussed their next deployment.

Orders from Brass had come down that they were to rendezvous with a frigate at the resupplying station in Eridanus system. It must be where Khae would be departing as well, the timeline fit. Ten days. That was how long it would take the _Point of No Return_ to reach the depot. She'd asked him to allow her to love him for that long, but Fred still didn't understand what that entailed. Thus far, she hadn't attempted to contact him. She'd left his quarters after he'd apprehensively agreed to her request, feeling like a monster for his inability to do more - to do anything - to mitigate his deplorable behaviour. Maybe she'd changed her mind? Decided she was better off steering clear of him? It was what any logical person would have done.

He'd gone through his routine both days mechanically, guilt ridden and anxious and convinced if he looked into the eyes of any of his teammates for above a few seconds they would know - they would know that he was broken. Losing control. Devolving from a highly functioning tactical combat asset into a violent and unpredictable mess.

_D1136_

That was what the small piece of paper which had fluttered down from being jammed into his door had read when he'd returned to his quarters that evening. He'd reflexively caught the tumbling scrap of paper which appeared to have been torn from a larger page and had stared at the message. To anyone else, it wouldn't have made much sense. It could have been a passcode, a date, a time, a data entry, or any number of other things. It wasn't. His muddled brain couldn't get past where she might have located paper on the ship. It was in limited use and supply. He flipped the scrap in his fingers and felt his face heat at the small heart outlined on the back.

"What's that?" Kelly asked from her doorway further down the hall, having noted his failure to enter his quarters.

Fred crumpled the note in his fist. "Trash." He ducked into his room and exhaled slowly when the door slid shut. Laying the paper onto the desk, he smoothed it flat, revealing the penned heart once again. He carried it to his bunk, laid on his back, and held it above him, gazing up at the crinkled paper as though its purpose could be deciphered beyond the obvious invitation to Delta deck, room 1136.

It was approaching halfway through the night cycle when he made his way there, with no further understanding of why. The note was tucked into his thigh pocket. It would have to be discarded. It would create questions if found amongst his kit. But he hadn't been able to bring himself to toss it into any of the disposal chutes along the way. Outside her cabin, he tapped lightly, then clasped his hands behind his back. He wasn't going to touch her, wasn't going to hurt her again.

The door slid open and she smiled up at him. "I thought you might be late."

"There was no time stated," he said, brow furrowing, though she was already reaching for his hand and drawing him inside. She ushered him towards the bed as the door closed again.

"So you assumed middle of the night was appropriate." It didn't sound like a criticism. She was still looking up at him, lips curled knowingly. "You thought about not coming." There was something very fragile about her expression.

Fred cast about for the right answer, the right thing to say. He thought of lying. He was already starting to sweat.

She rescued him. "It's alright. I know it's strange. Sit down." He did so as she took something from the desk. She climbed onto the bunk as well and tucked her legs beneath herself as she faced him. There were cards in her hands. "I was hoping… you would play with me?"

"I'm not sure I know how." The only games they had ever been taught had been those of strategy, to condition their minds to plan ahead and think critically under time constraints.

This didn't seem to bother her. In fact, she visibly relaxed. "I can teach you."

And she did. For more than two hours, she showed him various card games and then proceeded to be miffed and entertained in turns as he successfully mastered them all. Some were more of chance and luck than requiring any skill, and those she fared better at. Luck had never particularly favoured Fred, not as it did John. But he was fine with that. He actually found himself enjoying the leisure atmosphere, even if he couldn't relate what card games and love had to do with one another.

"I guess you have to go soon."

"Yes." He'd been keeping an eye on the time and would need to return to his quarters before there was too great of a risk of running across any of his teammates and facing more awkward questions. He watched as she slowly shuffled the deck. "Where did you get those?" The edges were well worn, some of the inked suits and numbers faded from use.

Straightening them up, she set the cards onto the bunk between them. "I borrowed them from an Ensign."

From what he had observed, personal belongings were jealously guarded amongst the regular enlisted. He wondered why anyone might lend a stranger a deck of cards they'd clearly been in possession of for quite some time, judging from their worn but meticulously good condition.

"Are you going to be tired now?"

"I'll be fine."

"Will you come back again?" She had put the deck down, but continued to look at it instead of him. The fingers of one hand had twisted in her shirt, just as they had that day outside his quarters.

Fred felt his stomach sour from that memory. He hadn't touched her. Hadn't hurt her this time. They'd sat opposite one another and he had enjoyed himself. He mulled over the consequences of doing this again, of tempting his self-control. She was peering at him from beneath her lowered lashes. Waiting. "I don't know," he finally relented. He still didn't understand what it was she wanted from him. From this situation.

Sliding off the bunk, she went to stand by the door, and he followed. "Don't come back unless you want to. Promise me you won't." Her head tilted back and she watched him expectantly, then offered a smile. "Goodnight, Fred." It struck him as an unhappy expression, despite the curve of her soft mouth. Something in her eyes told him he'd failed again somehow, though in what capacity he couldn't be sure.

Impulsively, he leant down and kissed her, only managing to curb the sudden hungry urge at the last moment and restrain himself to a gentle but savouring caress. Her hands leapt to his shoulders and swept up them, over his neck before she drew back.

"Goodnight, Fred," she repeated in a quiet voice.

"Goodnight, Khae." He left.


	7. 7

She sat with a group of Petty Officers in the mess. They were young, most of them serving their first posts, or so Fred had gathered from some discreet eavesdropping. A mixture of males and females. The blond she sat beside every day, he was the one she had borrowed the deck of playing cards from. Why this mattered, why any of it mattered, he didn't know. But he could nevertheless not help but covertly watch her from the table he shared with his teammates every mealtime which happened to coincide with hers. Four so far, since that night they'd sat on her bunk and played cards. He ate, listened to Kelly draw as much conversation from John or Linda as either was wont to participate in, and did his best not to obviously ignore them. It wasn't working. He was the one who generally kept up the other end of the discussion, and in the absence of his contributions, things were stilted. But other than a few passing quips from Kelly, no one was questioning him outright. Three things Fred had come to realize; John was uncomfortable with broaching the subject, Linda was studiously avoiding being drawn into any stance on it, and Kelly was doing her best to keep things normal. Keep the routine they all thrived within. Whether any of them were yet aware of the cause of his behaviour, he didn't know. John had to suspect something since that day he'd found Khae waiting outside their quarters, but he'd yet to bring it up. Social interactions were not John's strong suit. When John did question him, he expected it would be in relation to his lagging performance stats and not the strange female loitering by their cabins. Not at first, anyway.

She had said not to return unless he wanted to. He wanted to, and that was precisely the problem. How badly he wanted to disturbed him. The burning curiosity to learn what it was she had meant when she'd requested to be allowed to love him consumed him. Was it wrong to want to understand a word which so completely eluded him? He knew the premise, the definition. But that felt… different than understanding it, than experiencing it. He cared for his teammates as though they were an extension of his own being, they were fixtures in his life as indistinguishable from himself as his own arm or lung. Contemplating life without one of them was about as close as Fred had ever come to mentally crumbling, and so he stubbornly refused to do so. Blue team was whole and would remain that way. But that wasn't the same as what Khae had referred to, he comprehended that much. The love to which she eluded was a different thing, one he hadn't even discerned he had any interest in before now, nevermind acknowledged.

At the other table, everyone began to laugh. There was some jostling of shoulders, an action Fred judged to be nothing more than good natured ribbing between the soldiers. At the end, next to the blond, Khae was smiling with her lips, but not her eyes. They darted in his direction and the curve left her mouth. It was the briefest of moments, but he sensed despite the appearance of enjoying her companions, she was not happy. Was he the reason? Was it her overall circumstances? She took her tray, food half eaten, and carried it to the disposal chute, then left. The Petty Officers continued their conversation. The blond stood suddenly and left his tray where it was, proceeding in the direction Khae had gone. Fred's stomach churned. He stared down at his meal, nearly finished. John, Kelly, and Linda were done. They, too, would depart shortly. Indecision soured the food which now weighed heavily in his gut. He got up.

"Forgot something in my cabin," he offered lamely when Linda's sharp gaze shot to this abnormal departure from their usual habits. He didn't give them an opportunity to say anything, simply brought his tray to one of the chutes and dumped the contents, set it in the rack with a clatter, and left through a different exit than the one Khae had used. He went to the lifts, optimistically concluding she would return to her cabin - and having no other recourse. When he emerged on the appropriate deck, he could hear them in the corridor ahead.

"...still an open offer, y'know. Must get pretty boring for you around here."

"I wasn't really expecting entertainment along with being fed and clothed."

More laughter. "What can I say, the UNSC aims to please. Sometimes." He rounded a corner and spotted them ahead, walking towards her door at a leisurely pace. The blond strode at her side at a respectable distance. "Come on, it's just a few games of cards. You do owe me for borrowing them, right?" The blond turned his head towards her, and Fred's jaw tightened at the grin he wore.

"I do?" Khae didn't sound amused by the gentle pressure.

"Sure." The blond shrugged. "I mean, I'm a nice guy and all, but humouring is the least you can do. Lee and Hempstead will be there, it's not like you'll be the only female. We have a laugh, it passes a couple hours. Harmless fun. We can usually filch a few snacks from mess and Kaworski smuggled some booze aboard, enough for a drink or two left I bet."

They'd reached her quarters and paused. Fred continued towards them as Khae lingered by the panel but failed to use it to open her door. Because she was considering this offer, or because she didn't want to risk the blond inviting himself in? It was evident she was trying to decide how to respond. Then she saw him - he was hard to miss, even out of his MJOLNIR, and was frankly unimpressed it was her and not the Petty Officer to notice.

The blond turned belatedly and raised a brow, but then looked back to Khae, probably assuming he would bypass them on his way to wherever he was going.

Khae didn't share this assumption. She watched him approach, her back to her door now while the blond continued to await her answer. "I don't know. I think I have plans, actually," she dared to venture, eyes never leaving Fred.

He stopped when he reached them, which caused the Petty Officer to look his way again, this time with some disgruntlement though he kept his mouth wisely shut when he noted he was outranked. Barely. They regarded each other silently, Fred's head tilted down and the blond's up. Despite interrupting, he had no notion what he meant to say, a fact which seemed ill planned in hindsight. In his peripherals, he thought he read amusement in Khae's carefully composed expression.

The Petty Officer eventually gave in. "Well, if you change your mind…" Without finishing the sentence, he about faced and stalked back the way they'd come.

Fred tracked him until he rounded the bend, then shifted his attention to the slight black-haired woman standing before him. Her arched brows lifted slowly as the silence stretched on between them. He swallowed. "What time should I come back?"

"When you're ready," she offered unhelpfully, though she had appeared to relax her stance somewhat after the question.

He considered this. "I'll be available by 2000." Despite only requiring four or five hours of sleep, his responsibilities were usually fulfilled by then.

She nodded. The high ponytail she had gathered her hair into bobbed perkily. He wanted to pull it down and press his face into the cool dark strands. Even at this proximity, her scent invaded his awareness, making the need to get closer almost a physical force. "Fred," she breathed on a sigh. "You've got to stop looking at me that way."

"I don't think I can." He didn't understand how he was meant to look at her, and he wasn't convinced he could do it even if he did understand. "Do you not like it?" She hadn't worded it in such a way as to suggest as such, but this was the second time she'd brought it up. He didn't want to make her uncomfortable.

Her expression softened. "No… I think I could get used to it, that's the problem." When she saw this only puzzled him further, she reached out to curl her fingers around his wrist. "I'll see you later." She squeezed his arm, made as though to release it, then seemed to think better and tugged on him instead.

Fred leaned towards her, obliging the persistent pressure she was applying, and felt her warm lips against his cheek. He closed his eyes for a moment, then straightened up when she backed away again. Without another word, she turned and disappeared inside her cabin.

* * *

There were no cards when he returned at 2013 hours. She greeted him, fully clothed, and they situated themselves once more on the bunk.

She told him about Harvest, about her siblings, about her parents. About life in Gladsheim. About the vineyards, the orchards, the sweet smells of ripe fruit during the harvest season, the blossoming foliage and pungent earth scents in the sowing season. The masses of starlings circling the skies like a vast and writhing natural kaleidoscope as the setting sun reflected off their wings. The small bat her twin sisters had rehabbed when it had fallen from its roost in the rafters of their father's repair shop and how they'd sneaked it into their room despite their mother's protests and enlisted her to gather crickets and other insects to feed it, much to their little brother's delight. The machinery oil forever beneath her father's fingernails and the scolding her mother forever levelled onto him for soiling whatever he touched with it. The birthday they'd finally given her the kitten she'd been pestering them for for years on end, and the few short weeks later when it had run away, never to be seen again. The frog her brother had presented her with to replace it. The laughter.

Fred had sat, enraptured by her humble retelling of a childhood he'd never had the opportunity to experience. And he ached inside. Not for himself, because he still had John, Linda, and Kelly. She'd lost everything. But she didn't speak about the attack or their escape, instead focusing on the pleasant portions of her memories, and he sensed despite her tears on the cruiser, that she had come to terms with what had happened. There was a quiet strength in her, he was coming to appreciate. It wasn't the sort of resolve he possessed to persevere in the face of any and all odds, but the resolve not to live in fear in spite of her circumstances and her past. She was afraid to die, but then so were most when it came down to it. He did not fault her for that most basic of instincts for self preservation. He listened to her, watched the emotions play across her features, and said very little in exchange. Nor did she expect it of him.

When her stories petered off to a natural conclusion, it was a comfortable quiet which followed. He had come to rest with his back against the wall the bunk was affixed to, she facing him with her shoulder against the same wall. With a small yawn, she laid back onto the pillow instead.

"Will you stay with me for a little while?"

He checked the time on the panel by the door, taken aback by the hours which had passed. Still only 2438. He still had time. "I can stay."

She rolled to her side and scooted back tighter to the wall, patting the mattress in invitation.

Fred shifted to join her, stretching out as best he could on the not quite Spartan-sized bed, his careful positioning drawing a laugh from her.

"I'm guessing not fitting in or on things gets old."

"Used to it," he responded with a noncommittal lift of his shoulders, which took up nearly the entire breadth of the bunk. He angled himself on his side so she wasn't as crammed into the wall.

"It would annoy me." With his back turned to the small lamp on the desk she'd left on, blocking the light, her body was thrown into shadow. Her fingers slid over the blanket and up his chest slowly. "You obviously have more patience."

He nearly shrugged again, but thought better of it. He'd contributed basically nothing to the conversation up until now. "I've been this way for a long time. It's not patience. It did take getting used to. But that happened a while ago." It was divulging more than he normally did to anyone outside the program, but it still didn't offer any details. He felt it was safe.

Her eyes flickered across his face and down over his form before returning to meet his again. "I'm not going to ask you about it. I think you're worried about that, but you don't have to be." Her hand was moving across his collarbone, index finger tracing the ceramic carbide grafting.

Tension he hadn't even been aware had entered his body melted away at that simple reassurance. She had shared so much of herself, and he wasn't capable of reciprocating. Even if he'd been comfortable about her not having brought it up thus far, to hear her voice that she had no intentions of doing so was still immensely relieving.

"You've never asked me about things I can't talk about," she went on, and he deduced her more recent history was what she was referring to. Her fingertips skimmed his mouth and his heart thudded heavily behind his ribs in response to the light touch. "It's impossible to not touch you, you know."

"You didn't touch me last time I was here," he somehow managed to logically reason even while blood was deserting his brain and rushing to much lower regions.

Her lips curved. "That was hard."

So was he now. Painfully so. He cleared his throat, which seemed to have tightened, but wasn't sure what to say. She hadn't exactly indicated she wanted anything more from him physically, even if she couldn't keep her fingers to herself. He focused on taking even breaths. He wasn't going to hurt her. "I think I should go." Best not to test things.

Her soft perusal halted, fingers poised on his jaw. "Why?" She sounded caught off guard.

"I can't… I don't think I can do this. I don't want to hurt you again." He knew colour was suffusing his face, he could feel his skin burning. He would have sat up and gotten off the bed and put some distance between them if not for her hand on his cheek. It slid around to the back of his neck, as though sensing his intention.

"Fred, don't. That was… as much my fault as yours. I can't explain, I'm sorry," she said, brows drawn down remorsefully. "But please don't go. You're not going to hurt me. I'll make you stop if you do."

He almost snorted at those assurances. "You wouldn't be able to make me stop," he pointed out, distressed at just the idea of placing the responsibility on her. Not only would she never overpower him, it would be too late once he'd already hurt her even if she could.

"You'll stop if I tell you to. You already did." Her grip on the back of his head was not something he would struggle to disengage from, but still he found himself arrested by it, and by the conviction of her assertions. "Stay. Stay with me. You won't hurt me."

"I already did." He wanted to believe her, to believe in his own self-control the way she seemed to, but he'd already proven himself incapable of reining in his baser instincts.

"You didn't hurt me, I wanted it rough - I wanted it that way, I shouldn't have…" Her fingernails dug into his scalp as she fought to maintain eye contact. "...made you do that, it was wrong of me. I'm not normal. I told you, you shouldn't look at me like I'm more than a whore, I'm not. I'm broken and what happened, it was on me. It isn't you. I just wanted-"

"No," he cut her off, as much to his own dismay as hers. He wasn't in the habit of interrupting people, but neither could he allow her to take the blame for what had happened. He might not understand what it was she was attempting to impart, but he knew he'd been in the wrong. She might have wanted him to be rough, but _he_ hadn't intended that - he'd done it out of frustration and had failed to keep himself in check, which someone of his physical capabilities could never do. He might have done much, much worse to her, might have sent her to the infirmary. "I did hurt you. I saw you move afterwards. I hurt you. No excuses. And I can't do that again." He watched as she squeezed her eyes shut.

"We keep messing this up."

"Yes." He hesitated, knowing the noble and sensible thing to do would be to reason that further contact of this nature was likely to garner the same outcome. He had no clue what he was doing, had never before entered into a relationship of this nature. But he knew this wasn't the right way to go about it. Before he could muster up the will to do it, however, she shifted forward and pushed her face into the crook of his neck. Her hand fell lower against his back to clutch herself to him.

"Please… please stay," she mumbled into his shirt. "We can just lay here."

Fred assessed the situation. He wasn't in a state of arousal any longer. He didn't know what he was. Not calm, but not mindless with lust either. If all they did was lay still, he felt he could maintain his equanimity. Even if he knew that wasn't what he should do. "I can stay," he repeated his earlier answer, wondering if he was going to come to regret it.


	8. 8

Soft sounds pulled Fred back to consciousness, the vague impressions of faces whose features he'd long since forgotten dissipating slowly. His eyes opened on the muted lighting of a cabin which was not his own and he laid still as his brain caught up with his senses. Warmth suffused his front and even inhalations carried with them the scent somehow so similar and yet vastly different than of all others who used the same standard issue soap pods on the ship. Hair tickled his chin, beneath which she'd tucked her head, her own breaths hot as they puffed into his thin t-shirt.

Another small whimper was emitted as he assessed their positions and her body trembled. He could feel that she wasn't cold, his arm having fallen across her waist at some point after he'd unwittingly passed out. Likely a bad dream, then, he concluded. Twisting his neck, he managed to glimpse the time on the panel barely. 0418 hours. Still time for him to return to his quarters before his absence was noted with any luck. His attention returned to the woman shivering against his chest.

She huffed and tensed up, fingers curling in his shirt. Her knee jerked between his own legs, having been wedged there while he slept, and he squeezed them together reflexively to protect himself.

He said her name after clearing his throat, keeping his voice low. When this elicited no response, he slid his hand up to grip her shoulder and tried again. "Khae."

This time she started, twitching awake suddenly and cracking the underside of his jaw as she did so.

Fred eased back, not wishing to startle her further with their proximity, but the bunk didn't offer much room for personal space. He studied her bewildered expression, trying to decide whether he should beat a hasty retreat or not.

She blinked and released a sigh, then murmured, "I was dreaming. Sorry," while rubbing her eyes and shoving hair from her face.

He watched for a beat before allowing himself the luxury of helping her tuck the silky strands back behind her ear. She caught his hand before he could retract it and brought it to her mouth, lips finding his rough palm.

"Thank you. For staying."

"I fell asleep." He hadn't meant to do that. He hadn't even recalled feeling particularly tired.

"I noticed. You're really warm." Her fingers played over his wrist. "It was nice."

Waking up with a body cradled against his own for a reason other than collective survival of the elements during a training exercise hadn't been unpleasant. She was much softer than any Spartan, a distinction which, while making her more vulnerable in battle, also made her a more comfortable sleeping companion.

Her lips had curved slightly. "What're you thinking?"

"Nothing."

"Liar."

Fred wrinkled his nose. He'd been accused of being fairly abysmal at deception in the past by Linda and Kelly both, so he supposed it was no surprise she saw straight through him as well. Lying hadn't been covered in the program. "You're a lot less… uncomfortable to sleep beside than any of my teammates."

Her eyes widened before crinkling in mirth, a shift which made their outward slanting corners more pronounced. "I won't tell them you said so."

"Appreciate it," he assured, hoping his flush wasn't obvious in the shadows. He knew she was teasing him, but he didn't mind. The way she continued to caress his wrist, like she wasn't even really thinking about it, was mesmerizing him. His hand had been resting limply across her neck, but as she stared up into his face, lips parted slightly, he slid it to the back of her head and brought their mouths together, the natural inclination irresistible. One kiss was not nearly enough and the innocent embrace escalated almost instantaneously. He dragged her closer, she pushed up against him, and it still wasn't enough. He needed to feel her smooth unblemished skin beside his own, needed it as badly as his next lungful of air. Reaching down, he tore his t-shirt off, only breaking contact at the last moment to yank the garment over his head. It landed somewhere on the floor, where he also kicked the boots he'd slept in.

Seemingly of the same mind, Khae also peeled her clothes off, until they sat facing each other in similar fleet issued undergarments. She knelt up eagerly when he lifted his hands to the black sports bra, holding her arms above her head while he slid it up and off. Her lips found his again and she made no protest when he lowered them both back to the mattress, her fingers slipping into his hair and holding his questing mouth to her burning flesh.

Fred tasted the skin beneath her jaw, at the base of her throat, and between her breasts. He trailed hungry kisses over their heaving peaks, her clutching grasp encouraging his instinctive preoccupation. He could feel each nipple tighten and pucker beneath his tongue and her increased respirations as her small ribcage expanded and contracted rapidly.

"Fred," she moaned, the plaintive exhalation tightening his groin. She lifted her hips obligingly in order for him to drag the matching briefs down her shapely legs. They joined the rest of their discarded clothing and she helped him remove his own, their hands tangling and clumsy. Then she fell back and stretched herself provocatively, sliding her thighs open, obsidian hair spilling wildly across the mussed blankets.

His heart stuttered at the sight, one he knew would never, ever leave his memory. The way her pupils had dilated to gather as much of the limited light as possible, leaving a slim gray ring. The sweep of her brows. The deep red of her swollen lips as she panted in anticipation, arms thrown above her head in the ultimate pose of trust. It was all seared directly into his mind's eye even as he lunged down like something half-starved, capturing her mouth while he guided himself into her welcoming heat.

She arched and wrapped her legs around the small of his back, rolling her hips to meet each thrust. It was frantic and needy and she said his name over and over until she threw her head back and gasped through several more moans which pushed him immediately over the edge.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he pushed his face down into her tresses as the potent waves of pleasure forcibly rolled through him. His own ragged breathing assaulted his ears as he slumped over her, quivering with release. He felt her fingers at his temple. They smoothed over his eyebrow and carded through his hair and he pulled himself together enough to lift his head, only to have her mouth cover his. He kissed her slowly, lazily, the urgency gone for the moment, and found he enjoyed the languid caresses immensely. As his galloping heart rate slowed, he ran his hand through her hair and indulged her nuzzling affections, allowing her to softly stroke his jaw and cheek and the curve of his ear. His eyelids drooped and muscles relaxed to the point he realized he was in danger of slipping back to sleep if given half a second's opportunity despite not requiring the extra rest. Reluctantly, he pushed himself up onto his elbows. He'd been lying on top of her for a while, come to think of it. "Are you alright?"

The question obviously perplexed her. "Alright?"

"Because of…" He glanced between them. "I mean, I'm heavy. I didn't think about it before just now." Which was a testament to how poorly functioning his brain had been at the time.

"You're not light," she agreed, but threw her arms around his neck to prevent him from rising further when he made to do so. "But I am more than alright." She frowned when his gaze darted to the panel. "Do you have to go now?"

"Soon," he settled on guiltily after taking in her reaction. He could spare ten or fifteen minutes, but he knew that wouldn't likely make much difference. She didn't want to feel used, and he was going to bail almost immediately following sex. He understood what the frown was about even if he wasn't always the most intuitive.

Her expression was resolute, but she leaned up to kiss him one last time. "Help me get dressed, then."

Fred raised a brow at the request as he rolled apart from her, sliding his legs over the edge of the bunk and sitting up.

She reached up and he took her hand, gently pulling her up as well. "It's just… I don't want you to leave me like this. I want it to be different than it normally is."

It took him a moment to notice she was blushing as he gathered their clothes from the floor, but he made no further remark. Just helped her back into her things, a process slowed drastically by how often her own hands guided his, lingering touches and stolen brushes of lips against skin. It struck him as he was donning his own attire that he was loathing this as much as she was. It wasn't that he wanted to shirk his obligations, but neither did he want to leave her. He wanted to climb back onto her too small bunk and kiss her without rushing again, to give into that pleasant lull of sleep and to wake up again holding her. It wasn't a realistic wish, nor an advisable one, but he wanted it nonetheless.

As he stepped to the door he caught her elbow and drew her in close, enveloping her much slighter frame against his own. She molded pliantly to his chest, soft in all the places he was not.

They said nothing.


	9. 9

"It's not gonna bite you."

Fred eyed the unapproved personal tablet with discomfort as it rested innocuously on the desk where she'd propped it up for easier viewing. It belonged to one Petty Officer Second Class Hempstead. It wasn't like he wasn't aware crew smuggled things they weren't supposed to aboard, but still. Warm fingers cupped his cheek and he allowed his head to be turned away from the dubious tablet.

The movie was half over when he next paid it any attention and the plot was difficult to discern. Even with his sheltered perception of social interactions, it seemed farfetched to him. He didn't say as much. Just half sat, half reclined against the wall with Khae nestled between his legs, her disheveled hair tickling his chest as she lounged back against him. She'd tugged his arm across her midsection and repeatedly squeezed it in response to rising tensions or loud noises, he figured unknowingly. He didn't mind.

When the credits began to scroll over the screen, she angled her head to peer up at him. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" She'd seemed astonished he'd never watched a film for any purpose other than to learn the finer points of battleground logistics. "Even without popcorn."

His scarred eyebrow rose and her mouth fell open.

"Really, Fred? No popcorn either?" She made it sound like a monumental tragedy. He knew _what_ popcorn was. He'd simply never eaten it. Before he could say as much, she lurched up and off the bunk, to his disappointment.

"What are you doing?" A note of apprehension he hadn't meant to allow to snuck into the question as he watched her take up the tablet and tap its surface deftly. It did provide him an unobscured eyeful of her naked body, however. He'd started to rise at her abrupt departure from the tangled blankets, but sank back again slowly in light of this. The curve of her hip, the fading bruises over her slender wrists, the shadowed valley between her breasts, the still healing puckered skin on her shoulder from his combat knife - he could stare at them, at her, for hours and continuously find some new detail to draw his eye. Everything, every imperfection, enthralled him.

Spinning away from him to hide whatever it was she was up to caused the jagged edges of her hair to swing softly against the base of her neck. "You'll see."

He snorted at the contradiction between her actions and words. "Apparently not." He still didn't mind. She could stand there as long as she wanted if it meant he got to look his fill.

He heard her fingers make several more selections, tapping the tablet's screen, then she set it back onto the desk. "Okay, get up," she prompted him while turning back, gray eyes full of anticipation.

That was when he heard it. The music. It was coming from the tablet, quiet at first but building, with a slow tempo and a female vocalist. He didn't recognize all of the instruments, but neither had he given that sort of thing much consideration before. It wasn't what some of the ODSTs and regular enlisted blasted in the gymnasium at times - that, Fred found obnoxious. He wasn't sure what to think of this, or of the expectant way she was patiently waiting for him to do as she'd said. Sliding to the edge of the bunk, he got to his feet.

"Now, come here."

He did so.

She took both his hands, lifting them from his sides and positioning them on either side of the smallest point of her waist. "All you have to do is move when I move." Her own hands slid up his arms to his shoulders. She stepped back and he followed, maintaining the same distance she'd established between their bodies. Carefully, she maneuvered them in a tight circle in the limited floor space available in the cabin.

"Mind telling me what it is we're doing?" he had to ask, intrigued but more than a little baffled.

Her chin tilted up as she tipped her head to meet his gaze and a corner of her mouth hitched. "Dancing." She shrugged. "Or close enough to it." Her breasts flattened against his chest as she closed the gap between them. "Do you mind?"

He found he very much didn't, and something in his features must have expressed this, since she planted a kiss on his bicep before laying her head there. Her hands rounded to the back of his shoulders and she melted into him.

Fred wasn't sure this qualified as dancing, nor that his limited knowledge on the subject made him an adequate judge of such things. But he held her close and swayed in the small circles until the music faded. And then he did it some more.

* * *

She knew he was watching her in the mess hall. She knew, and she was torturing him.

Seated beside the blond Petty Officer in her usual spot, she twined strands of her dark hair around a finger while she listened to the others converse, then slowly released them as she slid her finger free. She touched her throat, her lips, ran her tongue over the lower one. Her eyes slid in his direction intermittently, coy and laughing.

It was maddening and his heart thumped wildly against his ribs, probably loud enough for John, sitting beside him, to hear - but he didn't care.

Four days. Four days before they'd reach the resupply station and part ways and he no longer cared if his teammates discovered what he'd been so poorly hiding this whole time. It didn't matter anymore. Whether he was reprimanded, pulled from active duty for reconditioning, received a black mark on his file, was ordered to undergo physical and psychological evaluation, or some combination of all, it didn't matter, and the fact that it didn't was not something he could even begin to unravel. In four days he was never going to see her again.

Would he return to normal then? Would these feelings fade over time the same way his memories of his life before the program had? Would he forget her face as well, the sensation of her smooth skin sliding against his own, her hot tears rolling down his calloused hand when he'd attempted to wipe them away, her distinctive smell, the way she breathed his name when he was buried deep inside her? The image of her sprawled in open invitation on the blankets remained vivid, but how could he - someone who couldn't recall what his own parents had looked like - be assured this information, too, wouldn't slip from his possession like sand through a closed fist? Was it inevitable? Would that be for the best? And if it was, as the rational portion of his mind was insisting, why was he dreading it?

He looked to Joh, Linda, and Kelly - all calmly ingesting their meals, untroubled by anything which was going on at any of the other tables. All poised and prepared to carry out the day's scheduled duties with confidence. Content to do so. That was how he was meant to be. What he needed to return to being.

But not for four days.

He spent hours kissing her that night, mapping every contour of her body with his mouth, searing it all into his brain. He might not always remember - not in ten or twenty or fifty years, if he lived that long - but he would review the memories daily and would not allow them to erode willingly.

* * *

"Wait!"

The lift doors were almost closed when a small yet determined hand shot between them, causing them to jolt to a halt.

Fred knew that voice. And that hand, with its neatly trimmed nails. He watched raptly as the doors slid back to reveal her. Beside him, his teammates looked on with varying degrees of interest at the unexpected delay.

Khae had no sooner stepped inside than John hit the control panel again, prompting the lift to continue to the level he had previously selected where they would return to reviewing details of their next assignment after breaking for lunch in the mess. The fact he hadn't waited for Khae to choose her own deck before doing so hinted at a certain impatience not outwardly detectable from his demeanor. Three weeks idly spent on a frigate following a partially botched mission was not sitting well with him, something Fred might have been more attuned to had he not been thoroughly distracted the entire time. Still, with only 21 hours remaining until they docked in Eridanus system, now didn't seem the time to address it.

After tapping delta deck as her stop, Khae shifted back from the once more sealing doors. "I didn't really get a chance to thank you all for helping me," she said.

So that was what this was about. Fred glanced to the others, who were once again regarding her impassively. He knew what they were thinking. That helping her hadn't been their objective, that if the mission had run smoothly and according to plan, she would have never been their problem, never even been on their radar. That her gratitude wasn't necessary. The same thoughts he might have had if not for what she had come to mean to him.

It was Kelly who responded. "Wasn't a problem." _We were there to collect our teammate_ , was what she meant. _You were just collateral._

Had they not been locked in the same area of the cruiser when the nukes had detonated, it would have never happened. She either would have been rescued by boarding teams sent over from the _Point of No Return_ , or she wouldn't have. She might have perished.

No one said anything more.

Khae offered a tentative smile, and Kelly returned it.

Linda took in the brief exchange with characteristic stoicism and John's gaze had returned to the panel, as though he could will the lift to travel faster by mere virtue of staring at it. Hard.

The interim was as quick as the conversation had been. They reached their level, the doors opened, and John exited, followed by Linda, then Kelly.

Fred made to follow, knowing he couldn't dither, and also that he would see her again in a matter of 8 hours or so. For the last time. He shoved reality of the situation away, to be dealt with later - he needed to focus on the briefing - only for his step to hitch at the feel of her slim fingers brushing against his own as he strode past. It was a barely there touch, fleeting and gone in the matter of a fraction of a second, and he was already passing through the lift door besides with his teammates in the hallway ahead. Still, he craned his head to look back over his shoulder.

She remained where she was, that uncertain smile still affixed. Flicked her hand down by her side to discreetly wave to him. Sadness lurked in her soft gray eyes.

He spread his own fingers in an answering gesture. Looked forward again.

Just 8 hours.

It didn't go by fast enough. The minutes seemed to drag on even though he was fully aware it was his own anticipation which made it feel as such. When he reached her quarters, she didn't answer his knock. Not the first one and not the second. He'd touched the panel and the door had let him in, but she wasn't there. Everything looked normal, undisturbed. So he'd waited, assuming she'd made a trip to the lav, or the mess, or somewhere else. He'd waited for the better part of an hour, the longest he'd dared at the risk of being discovered somewhere he was very much not supposed to be, and then he'd returned to his cabin and had lain awake, straining his senses at even the suggestion of footsteps in the corridor outside or perhaps the imagination of them, convinced she would turn up.

Except she never did.


	10. 10

**For those who are sensitive or empathetic readers, please note the warnings and that I have updated the tags of this story.**

* * *

"Fred," she crooned, drawing him from slumber.

He inhaled slowly, deeply - but nothing. The air smelled of recycled environmentals, the standard detergent utilized to launder the bedclothes and other linens on board, and nothing more. Not her.

Opening his eyes, he pushed himself up from his bunk. The time on the door panel read 0433.

It'd been a dream.

Setting his boots on the deck, he scuffed the heels of his hands over his face. He hadn't intended to fall asleep. Hadn't believed he would.

Why hadn't she come? Where had she been when he'd gone to her cabin? There'd been no verbal agreement he would seek her out there, it'd been assumed. Just as it had been all the nights before. He didn't understand what had changed. Had she been called in for last minute debriefing, to tie up loose ends? Taken ill and wound up in the infirmary?

Sighing at himself, at the disordered and unfounded concerns, he forced himself to get up and prepare to depart from the frigate. They'd be arriving at the station in less than five hours. He stowed his meager belongings in his rucksack; four changes of fatigues - five including the fresh set he changed into, the sheathed combat knives which carried the improbable classification of doubling as eating utensils so that they need never be locked in the armory or otherwise leave his possession, a battered fleet issued tacpad he hadn't bothered to charge or turn on in weeks now, and not much else. Despite there still being four hours to docking when he'd finished, he performed a visual sweep of the room to ensure he wasn't forgetting anything.

Blue team had one last physical eval scheduled to ensure they were fit to undertake their next mission and it was to this he turned his thoughts. He knew there were going to be irregularities in his bloodwork. His hormone levels would reveal what he'd miraculously managed not to over the course of the prior three weeks. It couldn't be helped, so instead he rehearsed the explanation he'd concocted over the past few days in his head while he waited for Kelly's knock on the door - a part of their routine the origins of which stretched back more than a decade now. It wasn't a good explanation, nor one he was particularly certain was more advisable than simply telling the truth of the matter. Except he'd decided, advisable or not, he wasn't going to do that. To tell them. There seemed an inherent risk in exposing Khae as the source of his dismal performance scores and uncharacteristic behaviour, one he didn't fully understand but credited nevertheless as legitimate. He trusted his instincts, even if he'd been out of sorts ever since he'd set eyes on her on that cruiser. And they were telling him to protect her, to deal with the mess he was about to find himself in in a way which did not impact her, directly or otherwise. So he would lie, tell them the stress of being separated from his teammates without contact had triggered an unanticipated negative psychological response. John, Linda, and Kelly would attest to the fact he'd not been right since they'd collected him from the cruiser if questioned outright, and his various evaluations would back that up. It might land him on the sidelines for the upcoming assignment, and that wasn't what he wanted, but neither could he pretend he wasn't a liability to his teammates in his current condition. It would be best if he sorted himself out before returning to the field. He was confident he could do that and hold onto his memories as well. He _would_ do it. Be the proper soldier again, be a Spartan his team could rely upon.

A double rap signalled it was time to head to the mess for one last meal before hitting the lab for their blood draw. Fred left his bag on his neatly made bunk and joined his teammates in the corridor outside.

It went as badly as he'd expected. At first the results of his tests had elicited confusion, and a subsequent blood draw was ordered. When this provided the same abnormal hematology, the questions started. Polite at first. Was he aware his levels were outside his typical range? Was he experiencing any irregular symptoms? He fed them his contrived excuse and was met with skepticism. Some more pressing and diligent questions followed. He answered them all, leaving out any reference to Khae, to his association with her, or to what he'd been doing between the hours of 2000 and 0400 most days for the past two weeks. By the time they freed him to go, it was fast approaching time for Blue team to disembark and he'd been informed with no small amount of suspicion that Dr. Halsey _would_ be notified of their findings and that his fit for duty clearance would remain pending until her authorization was given. And he wasn't looking forward to _that_ comm.

Even with his guts churning anew, however, he couldn't prevent himself from searching the terminal on the resupply station as he, John, Linda, and Kelly stepped clear of the docking tube. He knew the chances he would spot her face in the crowds of station attendants, labourers, and milling military personnel were slim to none. There were numerous docking tubes and the station was over four klicks in circumference. She could be anywhere. She could still be on the _Point of No Return_. Or she could be long gone. He'd never asked her where she would be going from here. It'd seemed irrelevant when, no matter where it was, it wouldn't be where he was headed. This was the point from which their lives diverged. She'd asked him for twelve days, and he'd given them to her with wary uncertainty at first, and later with dumb, blind, foolish eagerness.

He didn't know if he regretted it. It didn't matter. It'd happened, and he would never forget that. Even if some day - despite his best efforts otherwise - he could no longer picture her or dredge up recollection of the precise lilt of her voice, he would remember it had happened.

"Fred," Kelly called, bringing him back to himself. He'd fallen behind in his vain attempt to summon the familiar figure from amidst the bustle. Readjusting the rucksack over his shoulder, he stretched his stride to catch up with his teammates, slipping his free hand into his pocket to avoid inadvertently brushing up against others as he squeezed past. That was when he felt it, a small wad half stuck to the lining of the inside of the pocket. He pulled it out, his puzzlement replaced by surprise when he realized what it was. The crumpled scrap of paper had seen better days. It must have been laundered with his fatigues, tucked safely inside the pocket after he'd failed to discard it. A quick glance forward assured him he was still on track to rejoin the others even if he'd once more become distracted. He gingerly unravelled the weathered note, the ink significantly faded but still displaying its unassuming message. Flipping it to the opposite side, he stared at the heart.

Of all of the voices speaking and all of the conversations occurring in the terminal, _why_ the one which separated itself from the indistinguishable chatter to catch his attention did so in that moment would be something he would never have an answer for. Perhaps a name he'd recognized or other trigger word was mentioned which attuned him to what was said next, perhaps it was pure happenstance. But his step faltered nonetheless. His rational self urged him to keep walking. It didn't concern him, it was none of his business, he'd inadvertently eavesdropped.

_Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Don't ask._

He turned to the speaker, one of the female Petty Officers from the table in the mess, and alarm bells rang obnoxiously in his brain.

_Don't ask. Don't ask. Keep going._

"What did you just say?" he asked her without the slightest note of guilt for having overheard.

She turned from the fellow crew member she'd been talking to and looked taken aback. Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. "Sorry?"

"Just now. What did you say?"

"About the girl they pulled from that cruiser?" she offered up for clarification.

_No. Keep going. Keep going._

He couldn't have even if he'd wanted to. Maybe he _did_ want to, but he was rooted to the spot by a force he'd never before experienced.

The Petty Officer had regained her composure. She cleared her throat. "I heard they found her in her cabin last night. Suicide."

_Too late._

He registered Kelly calling his name again, but it was a vague awareness almost drowned out completely by the thrum of his own pulse. He couldn't think. Couldn't understand. Couldn't breathe.

The Petty Officer was talking again. He saw her lips move and somehow, despite being unable to process what he'd just been told, his addled brain supplied the words. "Did you… did you know her?"

Had he known her? Only the parts she'd disclosed. About the vineyards, the grease beneath her father's fingernails, the injured bat, the birthday kitten that had run away. Only the exact shade of gray of her eyes, the way their outer corners tilted up, the fullness of their lashes spread against her cheeks when they were closed while she slept. Only the cool silkiness of her hair and the shape of her lips. Only the feel of her breath on his neck. Only the gentle pressure of her head against his chest while they'd performed something closely approaching dancing in the confines of her quarters. Only her laughter and her sobs. Only those things and a hundred more. That was all he'd known.

"I pulled her from that cruiser," he heard himself respond. Then he turned and walked towards his waiting teammates. He didn't see their reactions to his dead expression, their shared glances of confusion and concern. Neither did he remember the trip through the resupply station to the frigate they were to board. It wasn't until he sat on the bunk in the cabin assigned to him that he noticed and remembered the paper inside his closed fist. He regarded his clenched fingers as though they weren't even his, as though they belonged to someone else.

He'd grieved fallen comrades before. He'd seen men and women die, soldiers and Insurrectionists and civilians alike. He'd lost brothers and sisters. He'd lain on a table hooked up to monitoring equipment and listened to them code. He'd been angry. Distressed. Mournful.

He'd never been numb. The absence of any discernible emotion was worse, worse than the anger, the distress, and the sorrow combined. He knew he _should_ feel something, any or all of those things. He knew he was reeling. He knew he was in shock.

He should have kept going. He would have been able to go on believing she was lost in the crowd, or still on the ship, or already enroute to wherever it was she'd been going.

The paper was digging into his palm as though it were in fact composed of glass shards and not the fibrous pulp from trees. He couldn't open his hand. Couldn't look at the penned heart.

Pressing the fist to his temple, he leaned forward and hung his head. Closed his eyes and could still see her standing in the lift.

The subtle wave.

The smile.

The tragic, beautiful smile.

And something broke inside him.

~ Fin ~


	11. Author's Note

**Please note: I have no intentions of making light of mental illness or suicide. If you struggle with either of those things and you find this story upsetting, I am more sorry than words can say. I respect that some may find this conclusion disturbing. I thought long and hard about having it happen some other way, but this is what I kept returning to. Please seek help if this ending prompts you to experience harmful thoughts or feelings. Please understand this is JUST a work of fiction.**

This story was never meant to contain a happily ever after. I respect the canon and I never intended to alter Fred's character or status, which is why I chose a point in his past which is relatively obscure (according to the research I did. I apologize if there's anything I missed). I will come back to this point.

That being said, from the very beginning, I always planned for Khae to die. I know, I'm heartless. But it was part of the original idea which took form. Khae is a troubled and hurting character. I hope I was able to depict this adequately. I didn't know _how_ she would die from the get go, but I knew she would, and the further I developed her, the more certain I became that _this_ was the way it would happen. She's in pain, she's lost so much – her family, her home, her dignity (ahem, I'm now noticing a theme with my tendencies towards my OCs…) – and along comes a guy who looks at her and sees none of those things. He doesn't pity her, doesn't look down on her. He also doesn't have the first clue about social interaction, he's somehow a trained soldier and yet naïve about life, and her opinion of him actually means something to him. She's drawn to that like a moth to a flame. She just wants to feel safe and warm and cherished. Just one final time.

Returning to how this all affects Fred's history and the character he is in more recent lore – I felt having this experience occur in his mid-twenties would both be shaping but also not change too much anyone's perception of him in the now. He's still relatively young, still somewhat impressionable when it comes to human interaction, and not as 'hardened', if you will, as I believe he might be later on in life. He's seen some shit at this point, but he hasn't seen ALL THE SHIT. He's less experienced, still learning what it means to be THE soldier, not simply A soldier, and he hasn't at this point (in my humble opinion) had time to come across too many people who see him as just a guy rather than the freakishly big dude inside the crazy armor (aka a Spartan). He doesn't want to let anyone down, least of all his teammates, but that need to uphold expectations goes hand in hand with an intense desire to be needed, to be appreciated, to be enough without all the constant striving for perfection, and Khae almost immediately assigns him that role. She doesn't have expectations, she just wants to be with him. So while they struggle to make it work at first, it just made sense to me that the characters complimented each other. And even though I think her death would profoundly affect him because he's never experienced loss associated with romantic feelings for another before this, I also believe that it wouldn't fundamentally change him to the point where he'd be dysfunctional. I see it as more of an explanation for why a comparatively warm and relatable Spartan might not have entertained notions of opening himself up to any (known) such relationship (until Veta Lopis). Fred is not John or Linda. He's described as charismatic and deeply emotional when it comes to losing those who serve with or under him. And I struggle to imagine a guy of that character going forty-some odd years without rubbing shoulders with SOMEONE who he might develop deeper feelings for. Hence, this story.

I hope these ramblings have shed some light on my thought process and why everything went down the way it did. I don't normally feel the need to justify my writing, but as this story contains sensitive subject matter, it felt prudent to address that.

As always, thank you to those who have reviewed.


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